History of world glass development

Archaeological data show that the ancient glass manufacturing technology in China began in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which lasted for more than 2, years, and reached its peak in the Qing Dynasty, becoming the heyday in the history of ancient glass.

The Palace Museum has more than 4, pieces of ancient glassware.

from the collection era, there was almost no interruption from the warring States period to the Ming and Qing dynasties.

most of the collections are handed down from ancient times, especially the glass products in Qing dynasty account for the largest proportion, accounting for about 9% of the whole collection.

The glassware in Qing Dynasty was divided into two series: palace glassware and folk glassware, among which palace glassware accounted for 3/4.

Palace glass represents the technological level of glass making in the Qing Dynasty, and it is a variety of glassware made by the glass factory of the manufacturing office for the royal family according to the emperor's decree.

In the Qing Dynasty, from Emperor Xuanye of Kangxi to the last emperor Puyi, the glass factory of the manufacturing office, the official workshop of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, never stopped manufacturing and producing glass.

after the establishment of the glass factory, the glass production in Qing dynasty embarked on the track of steady development under the unified command of the emperor and the management minister of the manufacturing office.

According to incomplete statistics, there were varieties of monochrome glass, enameled glass, set glass, carved glass and gold-sprinkled glass in Kangxi dynasty, and gold-painted glass was added in Yongzheng dynasty.

Monochrome glass refers to glassware blown with single-color glass.

The monochrome glass in Kangxi Dynasty is the inheritance and development of the glass making technology before Qing Dynasty.

In the past, only one piece of transparent glass was known in the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Monochrome glass was the most numerous and varied product in Yongzheng dynasty, which was the mainstream product at that time.

Monochrome glass can be divided into "Nie glass" and "Bright glass", where "Nie glass" refers to opaque glass and "Bright glass" refers to transparent glass.

Enamel is a kind of glaze painted and burned on metal tires, porcelain tires and glass tires, which was introduced into China from Europe during the Kangxi period.

The glass tire painting enamel is the first glass decoration process in Qing Dynasty, which began in Kangxi Dynasty, but the object of the glass tire painting enamel in Kangxi Dynasty has never been seen.

another innovation of Kangxi dynasty's glass making process is the successful firing of the set of glass.

The so-called "set of glass" refers to the utensils made of more than two colors of glass.

There are two ways to make it. One is to cover the glass tire with another color different from the tire color, and then carve patterns on the outer glass. One is to directly pattern the tire with a heated semi-melted color stick.

set of glass is the product of the combination of glass forming technology and carving technology, and it is an important invention in the history of glass making technology.

The objects made by these two methods can be seen with the effect of convex carving, which not only has the beauty of glass quality and color, but also has the three-dimensional beauty of concave and convex patterns.

Gold-sprinkled glass is another kind of glass innovated in the Kangxi Dynasty.

However, there is no record of making golden glass in Yongzheng's archives; However, the archives of Yongzheng dynasty recorded the production of gold-painted glass, which depicts gold patterns on the glass surface, and its production method should be derived from the practice of gold-painted paint in lacquer technology.

Throughout history, the Kangxi Dynasty was the beginning and the period of laying the foundation for the official glass-making process in the Qing Dynasty. The establishment of the glass factory was the product of Emperor Xuanye of Kangxi inheriting the traditional glass-making process in China and absorbing European science and technology, and it was also the result of the royal family's attention and love for glass products.

The glittering glassware became the new favorite in the works of art in the Qing Dynasty and an important gift from the emperor.

there are as many as 3 kinds of glass colors in Yongzheng dynasty, which can be described as colorful and gorgeous, and it has become the bright spot of glass making technology in Yongzheng dynasty.

the Qianlong dynasty was the most brilliant and all-round development period of glass-making technology in the Qing dynasty.

Jiaqing dynasty was a turning point in the glass production process. Since then, the glass factory in the establishment has been in a slump, and the technological level has gradually declined.

the history of glass craft production and development in Qing dynasty is closely related to the prosperity and decline of Qing dynasty, which is the irresistible development law of government-run workshops.

who invented glass?

how many years has glass been with human beings?

before 35 BC, the ancient Egyptians first invented glass. They used it to make jewelry and kneaded it into very small glass bottles.

By 1 BC, the ancient Egyptians had mastered the technology of glass blowing, and they could blow glass products of various shapes.

In order to commemorate this invention of the ancient Egyptians, many modern crystal glass works have Egyptian heads and patterns of ancient Romans fighting with Egyptians.

After the ancient Rome defeated the ancient Egypt, the ancient Egyptian prisoners of war were put on Venice Island to make glass, and the glass-making technology spread to Italy, which led to the famous heyday of Venice glass.

around the middle of 16th century, Italian artisans began to dig and utilize rock crystal. However, due to the hardness and small reserves of rock crystal, it is difficult to make it into utensils.

Therefore, in the second half of 17th century, Italian glass manufacturers invented "artificial crystal", also known as crystal glass, by adding a certain proportion of lead into quartz sand solution.

Artificial crystal not only overcomes the above-mentioned shortcomings of rock crystal, but also has high transparency, good refractive performance, heavy weight, cutting resistance and easy carving, thus becoming an important milestone in the history of glass development.

the heyday of Italian glass was ushered in.

(2) What is Bohemian crystal glass?

what are the characteristics of Bohemian crystal glass?

As early as the early AD, Bohemians learned the glass-making technique from the Italians. Smart Bohemians rely on two unique Bohemian forest resources:

(1) high-quality quartz sand mining belt

(2) rich oak tree resources. People burn oak to smelt quartz sand, and extract high-quality potassium carbonate from oak ashes and dissolve it in glass solution, so Bohemian "forest glass" is famous all over the world.

Bohemians not only learned the Italian white water crystal glass manufacturing technique, but also introduced Bohemian unique colored glass.

It surpassed Venice glass in one fell swoop and became the best crystal glass in the world.

in the 19th century, according to the physical and chemical characteristics of different elements, Czech masters put forward the latest chemical formula. They added different non-ferrous metal elements such as gold, silver, calcium, cobalt, uranium, lithium copper oxide, etc. into the glass solution, and fired the crystal glass with different colors such as red, yellow, blue, green and purple, also known as Crystal Lin.

The crystal glass changed into colorful colors, and the reputation of "Czech crystal-transparent gold"

l spread all over the world.

(1) crystal classification

1. rock crystal, also known as quartz stone, is formed by natural crystallization, and its main component is silica.

the color is mostly light yellow (a little purple, brown), the hardness is about 8, and it can only be melted at 2 degrees. It can only be carved and polished into small products, but it cannot be processed into large vessels.

2. Artificial crystal (lead crystal, lead-free crystal, crystal Lin)

(1). Lead crystal: It is made by melting quartz sand (mainly composed of silicon dioxide) with a certain amount of lead oxide, and lead can reduce its hardness, with the hardness of about 4.

features ① heavy quality, soft quality, cutting resistance

② high transparency, good refractive performance,

③ metallic sound when knocking.

(which is the biggest characteristic different from ordinary glass)

(2) Lead-free crystal: high-quality potassium carbonate is dissolved in quartz sand, and lead is replaced by potassium, also known as potassium glass, and its hardness is about 6.

(3) Crystal Lin: Adding different metal elements into the potassium glass solution makes the crystal glass show different colors.

It is called colored crystal glass, and its hardness is mostly 6.

features: ① crystal clear, good refractive performance

② high hardness, strong toughness and relatively impact resistance, which is more suitable for engraving and depicting glass surfaces.

③ The metallic acoustic characteristics of lead crystal are retained and surpassed.

the biggest selling point of lead-free crystal is the combination of light and music.

(II) Process

1. White crystal (lead-containing crystal and lead-free crystal)

(1) Lead crystal process

① Blowing: mould blowing (manual) machine blowing (machine)

② Molding, grinding and machine pressing

③ Cutting:

Machine cutting.

manual cutting: simple cutting: acid polishing after deep cutting. fire polishing

complex cutting: precision cutting and soft cutting.

④ precision polishing: hand polishing, geometric figure as the main shape, three-dimensional and multi-edge shading.

(2) Lead-free crystal: crystal glass is synthesized with high-quality potassium carbonate instead of lead oxide. Lead-free glass has higher hardness than lead glass, so it is not suitable for complicated cutting and polishing, and can only be used for simple cutting, surface engraving, gilding, silver gilding, etc.

2. Color series:

In color products, processes are often mixed.

(1) firing

(1) manual blowing-air blowing and molding blowing

The glass melted at 14 degrees Celsius is wrapped with the tip of an iron pipe, blown vigorously, and formed in a short time.

air blowing is to improvise the shape of the glass with the imagination of the craftsman.

type blowing is to blow out the shape of the glass according to the wooden or metal mold.

② Manual thermoforming (kiln glass): when the glass is at a high temperature of 1-14 degrees Celsius, use scissors to cut or lengthen the glass, and create different artistic shapes according to the imagination and design of the craftsman.

fixed shape

improvisation (the top work of this craft is Ronini).

(2) gold tracing

① gold tracing series: this kind of products have the most classical European royal style, and the surface is decorated with heavy gold powder, which is refined by hand drawing and spray molding.

its value depends on the purity and quantity of gold, the density of enamel flowers and the complexity of patterns.

Generally, its manual content is above 7% to 9%; The outstanding feature of BCT products is that the surface decoration gold is pure gold.

This kind of products can be divided into hand-molded bottle embryos and machine-molded bottle embryos, and the value of hand is higher than that of machine.

J& Q brand products have the certificate of payment provided by BCT.

② light gold and light silver series

are divided into colored light gold and light silver (such as gold leaf series) and colorless light gold and silver (such as Yujin and Yujin series);

③ Hand-painted: hand-painted plane painting process: Franck flower

④ Carving: Hand-carved flower (red and blue carving, wild goose series)

Computer carved flower (flower cup, orchid)

(3) Color process:

The top technology is a chemical formula: different colors are sintered according to the physical and chemical characteristics of different metal elements. Produce different colors

add gold-red,

add silver-yellow,

add calcium-green,

add cobalt-blue.

adding ammonium-purple,

adding copper-agate,

adding lithium oxide-marble.

② Spraying technology:

It is a coloring technology baked at high temperature, which can be used inside and outside the glass bottle embryo, not only on the crystal bottle embryo, but also on the lead crystal bottle embryo (such as machine-made gold-coated series, simple gold-coated series, and color triangle gold-tracing).

) surface coloring, such as spraying color inside classic series products, such as machine-made gold-coated series and simple gold-coated series

③ surface coloring:

The exterior of the bottle body is partially glazed, and some color raw materials contain cadmium. If the temperature is less than 1 degrees when coloring, cadmium will be easily released from the products when using, which will cause damage to the human brain and nervous system, so it is required that the temperature control must be accurate.

Generally, the temperature in small factories is controlled by manpower, and the products (such as red, blue and purple series) made by BCT are absolutely safe and reliable.