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About this object

  • ID:

    TWR89[182]<3>

  • Production date:

    early 16th century; 1520-30

  • Location:

    In Store

  • Only those with sufficient means could afford the best quality European table glass. Vessels like this exquisitely decorated, inscribed, 'paynted and guilte' beaker were greatly prized and often made to commission. The beaker has the characteristic gilt dotted enamel 'patera' decoration common on fine Venetian glassware of about 1500, and was recovered from a chalk-lined cesspit in Great Tower Street with a leather patten and other table-glass fragments. The vessel was probably 'cristallo' (colourless) originally, the present purple tinge having been caused by the chemical breakdown of the manganese oxides which were originally used as a decolourising agent. Italian merchants brought consignments of glassware into London with sacks of sponges, carpets, pepper and soap. The English appetite for fine glass from Venice, France and Spain was a luxury which some Londoners thought was an unnecessary expense.

  • Measurements

    H 100 mm; DM 70 mm (base), DM 78 mm (rim), H 100 mm; DM 60 mm (overall)

  • Materials

    glass

  • Last Updated

    2024-03-14

FURTHER INFORMATION
  • NUMBER OF ITEMS

    1

  • STATUS

    archaeological archive

  • COPYRIGHT HOLDER

    digital image copyright Museum of London

  • Related place

    City of London

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