Vase

A small vase made of hyalith (black glass) which is an outstanding example among other items made of this unique material in the Wilanów collection. It was manufactured with the use of hot-forming technique and its design was not embellished by grinding and polishing or any complex painted decoration. The foot and the spout of the vessel are not precisely round and the bottom shows a clear trace of the punty, i.e. a glass-blowing tool where the flattened glass bubble coming from the blowpipe was attached. The trace left by this tool was usually removed by polishing, but it was not the case for this vase from Wilanów, which may suggest that the item was manufactured in a glass factory with less advanced technology or that it was to be sold at a lower price.

The vase is made of black non-transparent glass called hyalith. It received its name, inspired by the Greek word for “glass” (“hyalos”), from the very inventor of this 19th-century technical novelty, Georg Franz August Longueval, count of Buquoy (1781–1851). He was a mathematician, a physicist, a chemist, a philosopher as well as an owner of several glass factories. His broad interests and experiments led him to discover a new recipe for molten glass that has the characteristically deep black colour. Its production started in 1817. Owing to the unique hue, products made of hyalith, such as cups, vials, vases, tea containers or candle-holders, quickly became fashionable and widely in-demand. For this reason, many manufacturers obtained the hyalith recipe and started producing this type of glassware. The vase from the Wilanów collection could have been the product of one of such factories.