To have glass mounted in silver shows how precious it was considered in
those days. Moreover, the royal accounts of the end of the fourteenth
century prove that Charles VI accorded high protection and recompense to
the Flemish glass-blowers who established their industry in France.
Before the end of the fifteenth century, we find entries that would seem
to show that the Low Countries were no longer exclusively dependent on
the Orient for coloured and enamelled glass. In the inventory of Charles
the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1477), we read: “_Une coupe de voirre jaune
garny d’or; ... une couppe de voirre vert garny d’or; ... un pot de
voirre de couleur vert, garny d’or; ... un aiguière de voirre vert
torssé garny d’or; ... deux petis pots de voirre bleu espez, garnis
d’argent doré; ... ung voirre taillé d’un esgle, d’un griffon et d’une
double couronne garny d’argent_.” These, however, may have come from
Venice, which city had in the latter half of the fifteenth century
learned from the Greeks the secret of making coloured, gilded and
enamelled glass.
Painting on glass was never held in higher honour than during the
fifteenth century: castles and mansions were adorned with coloured
windows like the churches; and, therefore, a considerable number of
windows of this period have survived. The Cathedrals of Tournay, Dietz
and Antwerp offer splendid examples. In M. Levy’s _Histoire de la
peinture sur verre_, are the names of several Flemish glass-painters
that have escaped oblivion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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