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Goblet thumbnail 2
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Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Not currently on display at the V&A
On short term loan out for exhibition

Goblet

1581 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Historical significance: A similar large goblet dated 1578 is in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Also fragments of two further goblets of this type have been found in excavations at Southampton. The attribution of the whole group of goblets to Verzelini rests on the identification of Anthony de Lysle as the French glass engraver recorded in London at exactly the period of these dated glasses. The links between the engraver and the Pewterers' Company (with which de Lysle was connected) and the English dedications make this identification convincing. The glasses themselves differ little from those imported from Venice, and indeed were probably identical to those made by Verzelini on the Continent before he came to London.

Object Type
Clear glass goblets of this type were made in Italy and by emigrant Italian glassmakers in other parts of Northern Europe, notably France, the Low Countries and England. The glass itself is too large to be a conventional wine glass and may have been intended for strong beer. However, its primary role was probably simply as an engraved presentation piece to John and Jone Dier (members of a large Somerset family), perhaps to commemorate some family event of 1581.

Collectors & Owners
As early as the 1920s there was much interest in this group of about a dozen engraved glasses with English inscriptions and dates in the late 16th century. Publication of the group, and the possibility that the glasses were made by the famous glassmaker Giacomo Verzelini (1522-1616), persuaded museums and collectors to acquire the few available examples. After the gift of Wilfred Buckley's collection, including two glasses by Verzelini, to the V&A in 1936, almost all the group was to be found in public collections.

The evidence that Verzelini made this group of glasses is compelling but entirely circumstantial. The glasses themselves are little different from those made by Italian workmen in other parts of Europe at the time, but they do bear English inscriptions. The inscriptions may plausibly be linked to the French glass engraver, Anthony de Lysle, who is known to have worked in London (he is recorded there in 1582 and 1583). Verzelini's monopoly of 1574 (his exclusive right to produce and sell Venetian-style glass in England) forbade the import of Venetian glass, so in theory de Lysle would have been compelled to purchase English glass from the Verzelini glasshouse. De Lysle was also a pewterer, and the presence of the metalworking technique of gilding, together with the motto of the Pewterers' Company on one glass of the group, strengthen the likelihood that he engraved the glass, In turn, this reinforces the connection with Verzelini. After about 70 years this convincing chain of evidence still remains to be challenged.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Diamond-point engraved glass, with mould-blown stem
Brief description
Goblet, England (London), 1581. Possibly engraved by Anthony de Lysle, probably at Verzelini's glasshouse.
Dimensions
  • Height: 21.5cm
conversion size only
Styles
Marks and inscriptions
engraved 'JOHN..JONE' 'DIER 1581', also a coat of arms - quarterly one and three fleur-de-lys, two over one; two and four, three leopards for Queen Elizabeth. Between the panels are scrolls of foliage; above and below are cable boarders; round the base of the bowl single straight leaves and round the foot leaves and spirals. (decoration)
Gallery label
Goblet By Jacopo Verzelini, the engraving probably by Anthony de Lysle English (London, Crutched Friar's Glasshouse); 1581 Glass engraved with a diamond point Buckley Collection Jacopo Verzelini, a Muranese who came to London via Antwerp, received letters patent in 1574 "for the makynge of drynkynge glasses such as be accustomablie made in the town of Morano". His glass-making monopoly also included a ban on the import of glasses into England. The diamond-point engraving, a form of decoration alien to England, is probably by Anthony de Lysle, an immigrant Frenchman, who is recorded as an engraver of pewter and glass in London in the 1580's. The original owner of the goblet, whose names are engraved on it, may be identified as John and Joan (*Jone) Dier of Roundhill, Somerset.(1990s)
Credit line
Wilfred Buckley Collection
Object history
Buckley Collection
The Dyers or Diers were a Somerset family. It is most likely that this glass was made for John Dyer of Roundhill, who married Joane Ernley, who died in 1594.


Production
dated 1581
Summary
Historical significance: A similar large goblet dated 1578 is in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Also fragments of two further goblets of this type have been found in excavations at Southampton. The attribution of the whole group of goblets to Verzelini rests on the identification of Anthony de Lysle as the French glass engraver recorded in London at exactly the period of these dated glasses. The links between the engraver and the Pewterers' Company (with which de Lysle was connected) and the English dedications make this identification convincing. The glasses themselves differ little from those imported from Venice, and indeed were probably identical to those made by Verzelini on the Continent before he came to London.

Object Type
Clear glass goblets of this type were made in Italy and by emigrant Italian glassmakers in other parts of Northern Europe, notably France, the Low Countries and England. The glass itself is too large to be a conventional wine glass and may have been intended for strong beer. However, its primary role was probably simply as an engraved presentation piece to John and Jone Dier (members of a large Somerset family), perhaps to commemorate some family event of 1581.

Collectors & Owners
As early as the 1920s there was much interest in this group of about a dozen engraved glasses with English inscriptions and dates in the late 16th century. Publication of the group, and the possibility that the glasses were made by the famous glassmaker Giacomo Verzelini (1522-1616), persuaded museums and collectors to acquire the few available examples. After the gift of Wilfred Buckley's collection, including two glasses by Verzelini, to the V&A in 1936, almost all the group was to be found in public collections.

The evidence that Verzelini made this group of glasses is compelling but entirely circumstantial. The glasses themselves are little different from those made by Italian workmen in other parts of Europe at the time, but they do bear English inscriptions. The inscriptions may plausibly be linked to the French glass engraver, Anthony de Lysle, who is known to have worked in London (he is recorded there in 1582 and 1583). Verzelini's monopoly of 1574 (his exclusive right to produce and sell Venetian-style glass in England) forbade the import of Venetian glass, so in theory de Lysle would have been compelled to purchase English glass from the Verzelini glasshouse. De Lysle was also a pewterer, and the presence of the metalworking technique of gilding, together with the motto of the Pewterers' Company on one glass of the group, strengthen the likelihood that he engraved the glass, In turn, this reinforces the connection with Verzelini. After about 70 years this convincing chain of evidence still remains to be challenged.
Bibliographic references
  • [Wilfred Buckley, Diamond engraved glasses of the 16th Century, 1929]
  • [W. A. Thorpe, English Glass, 1961 pp.94-113]
  • [The Lisley Group of Elizabethan Glasses, The Connoisseur, Dec.1948 p.110]
  • [An historic Verzelini Glass, Burlington Magazine, 1935, pp.150-7]
  • [R. J. Charleston, English Glass, 1984, pp.53-9]
  • [cf. Lit Mat 546]
  • [cf. E. S. Godfrey, The Development of English Glass Making, Oxford 1975]
  • [Bulletin de l'Association Internationale pour l'Histoire du Verre, No.8 1977-80 p.85 fig.27]
  • Burlington Fine Arts Club 192 (was this an exhibition in January 1930?)
Collection
Accession number
C.523-1936

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Record createdDecember 13, 1997
Record URL
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