Standing cup with cover

Matthäus Baur II

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Although red glass had been produced for stained glass in Northern Europe since the Middle Ages, its use had not extended to vessel glass. It was not until the German chemist Johann Kunckel experimented in the later seventeenth century that a true ruby red glass was made suitable for vessel glass, at Potsdam, under the Duke of Brandenburg. The secret of the formula was very soon well-known; a workshop in Freising made a specialty of making novelties in this material and sending them to Augsburg to be mounted in silver gilt. The family of Matthäus Baur and his sons were specialists in this. The coloring factor in ruby glass was gold in the glass mass, and this was an ingredient that made red glass expensive and exclusive. Gold was also thought to be anti-toxic and to protect from poison anyone who drank from it. A very similar goblet (now in the Danish Royal collection), in the form of an apple, was given to Queen Charlotte-Amalie by her husband Christian V at Christmas 1695; it also bears the mark of Matthäus Baur II.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art