Wine Glass thumbnail 1
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Europe 1600-1815, Room 5, The Friends of the V&A Gallery

Wine Glass

1650-1700 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

The 'roemer' was the most popular drinking glass for white wine in the seventeenth-century Netherlands. A roemer is made out of green glass and consists of a foot, a hollow shaft, decorated with prunts, and a bowl. Bowl and shaft are blown as one hollow shape and visually separated with a ribbed glass thread around the outside. The prunts on the shaft are decorative but also provide a good grip. Roemers were imported into the Netherlands from Germany in the ten-thousands but smaller numbers were also produced locally. The typical green tint is caused by iron impurities in the sand used to make the glass. Glass can be decolourised, but the green tint was deemed attractive and ideally suited for drinking white wine, as the colour of the glass gives a golden tint to the wine inside.
This roemer is decorated with a suitably jolly scene of dancing peasants and a musician, skilfully scratched into the glass with a diamond-point.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Glass with diamond engraving and applied prunts
Brief description
Wine glass (Roemer), Netherlands, diamond-point engraved with dancing scene, 1650-1700
Physical description
Roemer of clear, green glass. Cylindrical shaft opening out in an ovoid bowl. Spun, conical foot. There are raspberry prunts on the shaft. On the bowl an engraved scene of two couples of dancing peasants and a bag-pipe player seated on a wine barrel and grapevines.
Dimensions
  • Height: 204mm
  • Diameter: 100mm
Styles
Gallery label
Engraved with vines and dancing peasants and a bagpipe player, seated on a barrel.
Credit line
Wilfred Buckley Collection
Object history
From the Wilfrid Buckley collection
Historical context
Green glass roemers were often used for white wine as the colour of the glass gives a golden tint to the wine inside.
Production
The engraving is in the style of Willem Mooleyser who was active in Rotterdam from about 1680-1700.
Cf. Roemer in Rijksmuseum, dated 1650, with monogram JM (cat. 27); and other with date 1653 and monogram in the Ritman sale (Sotheby's London 14-11-95, lot 14) and one in Corning (Straus coll.) and fragments wirh monogram, excavated in Amsterdam (Casa Rossa). will be published by Baart. One of the scenes of a dancing couple is taken from the same print as another engraving on a berkemeyer in the Rijksmuseum, cat. II, nr. 50.
Subjects depicted
Summary
The 'roemer' was the most popular drinking glass for white wine in the seventeenth-century Netherlands. A roemer is made out of green glass and consists of a foot, a hollow shaft, decorated with prunts, and a bowl. Bowl and shaft are blown as one hollow shape and visually separated with a ribbed glass thread around the outside. The prunts on the shaft are decorative but also provide a good grip. Roemers were imported into the Netherlands from Germany in the ten-thousands but smaller numbers were also produced locally. The typical green tint is caused by iron impurities in the sand used to make the glass. Glass can be decolourised, but the green tint was deemed attractive and ideally suited for drinking white wine, as the colour of the glass gives a golden tint to the wine inside.
This roemer is decorated with a suitably jolly scene of dancing peasants and a musician, skilfully scratched into the glass with a diamond-point.
Bibliographic reference
36/3574 Gift of Mrs Wilfrid Buckley (in memory of her husband).
Other number
8714 - Glass gallery number
Collection
Accession number
C.293-1936

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Record createdDecember 13, 1997
Record URL
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