New Books

Val Saint Lambert, 180 ans de Savoir-faire et de création (Val Saint Lambert, 180 years of knowledge and creativity), by Christine Kremer and Anne Pluymaekers. When the glass-blower gives life to the molten matter, it is a moment of grace... This is a good description of Val Saint Lambert: 180 years of daring know-how and one of the purest crystal formulas in the world. The technical knowledge of the glassworks as well as the creativity of the craftsmen earned an international reputation for Val Saint Lambert. The glasshouse opened in 1826, and was an immediate success, visible everywhere on the trading routes in the 19th century: from Maharajahs’ palaces to Orient-Express carriages. The crystal from Liege spread from society dinner tables in Belgium all around Europe. Today, Val Saint Lambert is in full expansion and can still be seen everywhere. This book is a detailed history of the company and its production. The glassworks, supplier to the royal Court of Belgium, is a prestigious stop in the tour « La Route du Feu » (The Fire Road).

ISBN 9782874158445 • 160 pages; 39 Euros.

The authors: Christine Kremer has a degree in History. For the last three years she has coordinated the International Exhibition of Ancient Ceramics, an annual meeting at Enghien Castle of antiquaries, amateurs and collectors of fire arts. Anne Pluymaekers is a graduate in Art History and Archaeology. At present, she is assistant curator in the Glass Museum at Charleroi. She is the author of several publications on Val Saint Lambert, and she also teaches at the Antiquaries section of the Forming Centre PME in Liège.

Brilliant Things for Akhenaten, The Production of Glass, Vitreous materials and Pottery at Amarna site O.45.1. by Paul T. Nicholson. Published by the Egypt Exploration Society, 2007. This book examines the coming of glass to Egypt and its relationship to the production of faience and pottery, particularly at Amarna site O45.1. The text combines excavated evidence with experimental archaeology and laboratory analyses to give a reconstruction of the production of glass and other materials at Amarna, both in terms of technology and social context. Dr. Paul Nicholson is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology in the Cardiff School of History and Archaeology at the University of Cardiff. Price £65; available from Oxbow Books (oxbow@oxbowbooks.com) and (USA) The David Brown Book Company (queries@dbbconline.com).

The Gentleman Glassmakers of Haute-Auvergne, by Tristan Busser. This volume is the most recent publication of the Society of Haute-Auvergne. Glassmaking was an important industry in Haute-Auvergne in the 17th and 18th centuries, with several glasshouses in the region and this study is based on original documents in the collection of the Society, and of the descendants of the glassmakers. The book, with 370 pages, costs 30 € and can be obtained through the following e-mail, secretariat@haute-auvergne.org.

Reflecting Antiquity: Modern Glass Inspired by Ancient Rome by David B. Whitehouse and Karol Wight is a catalogue of the exhibition of the same name and includes descriptions and illustrations of all the objects in the exhibition, which are drawn from 20 museums and private collections in the United States and Europe. The book was published by The Corning Museum of Glass in 2007 and is available from the Museum's GlassMarket for $29.95 (USD).

Glass Worlds, Paperweights from the ROM's Collection by Brian Musselwhite, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 2007. This small book has a complete history of the paperweight, illustrated with 75 weights from the ROM collecton. It was published to accompany an exhibit of the weights at the ROM. There are French, English, Bohemian and Chinese weights as well as American and Canadian ones, dated from 1845 to the present.

The Art of Glass published by the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, 2006. By Jutta-Annette Page, Curator of Glass, with essays by other scholars. ISBN: 1904832237. This book is a good general history of glass illustrated by outstanding examples from the superb collection of the Toledo museum.

The Jablonec Button, by Petr Novy, Ludmila Kybalova, and Sanka Siruckova, published by the Museum of Glass and Jewelry, Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech Republic, 2007 In Czech, English and German.

Breekbaar Verleden, Romeins Glas in de Lage Landen (Fragile Past, Roman Glass in the Low Countries), by F.M.A. van den Dries. The book can be ordered from Uitgeverij Matrijs, Lange Nieuwstraat 12, 3512 PH Utrecht, the The Netherlands, or uitgeverij@matrijs.com.

Ancient Glass in National Museums Scotland by C. S. Lightfoot. This book is the first comprehensive catalogue of a major public collection of ancient glass in Britain. It has been compiled by Chris Lightfoot, Associate Curator in the Department of Greek and Roman Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, drawing on his extensive knowledge of the collections there and in the British Museum, London, in addition to his archaeological expertise gained during many years of fieldwork in Turkey. National Museums Scotland has one of the most comprehensive collections of ancient glass in Britain. The objects include vessels that range in date from the Late Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, thus spanning over two millennia of glassmaking.

Ancient Glass, 2007 by NMS Enterprises Ltd – Publishing ISBN 978 1 901553 28 0 / 280 x 216mm / paperback / 40 colour + 160 black/white illustrations. It is available in the United States at $45.00: please contact Woodstocker Books, 15 Meads Mountain Road, Woodstock, NY 12498 (800) 669-9080 (toll-free): fax: (845) 679-4024; orders@woodstockerbooks.com. In Canada it is available from Codasat Canada Ltd at $60 CDN: (604) 228 9952; fax: (604) 222 2965; info@codasat.com. For all other orders/enquiries (UK rrp £29.99) please contact: NMS Enterprises Ltd – Publishing, National Museums Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JF, UK; + 44 (0) 131 247 4026; fax: +44 (0) 247 4012; publishing@nms.ac.uk

A New Light on Tiffany, Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls by Martin Eidelberg and Nina Gray, New-York Historical Society, 2007. This book accompanies an exhibit of the same name on view at the New-York Historical Society through May, 2007, and documents the newly discovered fact that Ms. Driscoll designed many of the lamps produced at the Tiffany Studios as well as supervising the team of women workers who cut out the glass pieces from her patterns.

The Glass from the Gnalic Wreck
by Irena Lazar and Hugh Wilmott, with contributions by C.M. Jackson. Annales Mediterranea, Zalozba Annales, Koper, 2006. 144 pages, 36 plates, Price 28 Euros plus shipping, order at annales@zrs.upr.si. This monograph discusses and illustrates the glass cargo of a ship which sunk off the coast of Croatia in the late 16th century.

H. E. M. Cool, Eating and Drinking in Roman Britain. Cambridge University Press, 2006. 304 pp, 27 line diagrams, 3 half-tones, 43 tables. Available in hardback, paperback, and e-book formats. ISBN: 978-0-521-80276-5. More information at: http://www.cambridge.org/9780521003278.

Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall, An Artist's Country Estate, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2006. 262 pp, 348 illus., available in both hard and softcover, for $65 and $35. Catalog of the exhibit of the same name; this book has a substantial amount of new material on Louis Comfort Tiffany's estate and its furnishings as well as Tiffany's collections.

Jane Shadel Spillman, European Glass Furnishings for Eastern Palaces, The Corning Museum of Glass, 2006. 144 pp. 147 illus. Available for $24.95 from The Corning Museum of Glass. Published to accompany "Glass of the Maharajahs", on view in Corning in 2006, this book is based on original sources including design registration files, glass company archives and similar material.

Amin Jaffer, Made for Maharajas, A Design Diary of Princely India, New York, The Vendome Press, 2006. 270 pp., 290 illus. $65. Dr. Jaffer is the curator of Asian art at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; his book covers a range of items specially made for Indian royalty including jewelry, glass and other furniture, and tableware.

D. Foy et M.-D. Nenna, Corpus des signatures et marques sur verre vol. 1 & 2 : La France, Aix-en-Provence, Lyon, AFAV, 2006. ISBN 2-9505942-3-9. Order from Nicole Vanpeene, 10 Allée de l'Aube F-78310, MAUREPAS, 45 € + post for vol. 1 and 50 € + post for vol. 2.

Rimsko Steklo Slovenije; The Roman Glass Of Slovenia
Ed. Irena Lazar, Opera Instituti Archaeologici Sloveniae. 264 pp. 78 photos.
This is a comprehensive guide to the Roman glass from the 1st -5th centuries found and/produced in the territory of modern Slovenia.  It is published in a bilingual edition. 28 Euros. Order from ZRC Publishing, PO Box 306, SI-1001 Ljubljana, Slovenia www.zrc-sazu.si/zalozba