Mosaic Glass

mosaic glass, glassware made by fusing together pieces of diversely coloured glass. The earliest known glassware—vases produced in Egypt about the 15th century bc—is of this type. The Egyptian vases were formed by wrapping rods of different coloured glass softened by heating around a core of sand and dung. During the Ptolemaic period (305–30 bc) Alexandrian craftsmen perfected the manipulation of coloured glass rods to make composite canes, which, when cut into cross-sections, produced patterned pieces. These pieces were then fused into sheets that were reheated and formed in molds. After the Syrians invented glassblowing during the 1st century bc, mosaic-type glassware was produced by decorating the surface of hot blown glass with chips of coloured glass and then reheating and reblowing it. This technique is similar to that used in manufacturing millefiori glass (q.v.). Mosaic glass enjoyed a revival in modern times during the Art Nouveau period (about 1890 to 1910).