The Wine Glass Over the Water

The Wine Glass over the Water

God bless the King
I mean our faith’s defender.
God bless — no harm in blessing — the Pretender.
But who Pretender is, and who is King —
God bless us all — That’s quite another thing.
          John Byrom

Joanna, here, talking about an interesting sort of drinking glass our hero and heroine might have encountered in their travels through Georgian or Regency England.
The Jacobite Drinking Glass.
These are wine glasses that form a body of distinctive Eighteenth Century artwork.

We have these through a confluence of lucky chances.

First off, by 1700, English glassmaking was particularly advanced. 
A century before, the champion glassmakers were Venetian. The best glass in England was made by imported Italian glass artists, working by Italian methods.

This changed when the English developed flint glass.  'Flint glass' contains a high proportion of lead oxide, an ingredient that makes for tough, workable, clear-as-water product.  Excellent stuff, in short.  And it was an English specialty.


Continues here, at Word Wenches