A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 1 (of 2)Beckmann, Johann
History
A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 1 (of 2)
Beckmann, Johann
Inventions -- History
I shall now conclude these observations by a few notices respecting
glass tinged by fusion with gold, which, though never brought into
general use among glass-painters, has I know been employed in one or
two instances, flashed both on crown- and on flint-glass. Not long
after the time when the art of making the copper-red glass was lost,
Kunkel appears to have discovered that gold melted with flint-glass
was capable of imparting to it a beautiful ruby colour. As he derived
much profit from the invention, he kept his method secret, and his
successors have done the same to the present day. The art, however, has
been practised ever since for the purpose of imitating precious stones,
&c., and the glass used to be sold at Birmingham for a high price under
the name of _Jew’s glass_. The rose-coloured scent-bottles, &c., now
commonly made, are composed of plain glass flashed or coated with a
very thin layer of the glass in question. I have myself made numerous
experiments on this subject, and have been completely, and at last
uniformly, successful, in producing glass of a fine crimson colour.
One cause why so many persons have failed in the same attempt[342],
I suspect is that they have used too large a proportion of gold; for
it is a fact, that an additional quantity of gold, beyond a certain
point, far from deepening the colour, actually destroys it altogether.
Another cause probably is, that they have not employed a sufficient
degree of heat in the fusion. I have found that a degree of heat, which
I judged sufficient to melt cast-iron, is not strong enough to injure
the colour. It would appear, that in order to receive the colour, it is
necessary that the glass should contain a proportion either of lead, or
of some other metallic glass. I have found bismuth, zinc, and antimony
to answer the purpose, but have in vain attempted to impart any tinge
of this colour to crown-glass alone.
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