French heavy cut glass ice bucket, tapering vase form with incised leaf design and star cut base, engraved France, 8.27 in. high
- Incised - A record of a name, date or inscription, or a decoration scratched into a surface, usually of a glass or ceramic item with a blunt instrument to make a coarse indentation. Compare with engraving where the surface is cut with a sharp instrument such as a metal needle or rotating tool to achieve a fine indentation.
- Engraved Glass - The method of decorating glass by marking the surface with a sharp intrument such as a diamond, metal needle or rotating cutting wheel. As pressure is applied to the surface, best results for engraving are achieved if the glass is of sufficient thickness. In the 19th century etching was used to decorate some table glassware that was too fine to take an engraving tool.
- Cut Glass - Cut glass is glassware decorated with facets, grooves and depressions of various sizes and shapes, made by cutting into the surface of the glass using a rotating abrasive wheel. The glass is ground so the surface consists of facets, which have a high degree of light refraction, so that the surface sparkles.
The techniques of glass cutting had been known since the 8th century BC, and the practice was revived in Bohemia and Germany in the early part of the 16th century and in England in the 18th century. Cutting became the most common method of decorating glass in the second half of the 18th century and the early 19th century.
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