Find something on display: Glass

Made from the glass of a discarded bottle.

Beads made from blue, red and ‘milles feuilles’ glass.

Decorative coloured drinking glasses are known as Carnival Glass.

With plain bowl and air twist stem.

With engraved decoration and opaque twist stem.

Glass buttons or counters found in Egypt. The ancient Egyptians were the first to make coloured glass objects.

A lump of glass made from molten Silica.

Glasses can be made to sit on the nose, without earpieces. Such glasses are known as pinces-nez – literally ‘nose pinchers’.

With gilded coat of arms and the wording ‘Sandwich Volunteer Aug 1799 Brave and Free’.

Engraved with initials and an image of Sunderland Bridge, with a ship passing below it.

Bottles like this are often found with holes in a similar place. Recent research has suggested that the holes were made by collectors who broke off the seals on bottles as the broken areas correspond to where seals would have been located.

The glass is hollow and would have been blown into a mould.

Engraved with the Jacobite rose and a butterfly, and having an opaque twist stem.

Engraved with the Jacobite rose and having a plain stem.

Glass slides with images painted on them, which were projected large by shining a light through the slides using an early form of projector.

These beads are of unknown date and have been variously described as Egyptian, Medieval and Renaissance. The two halves of bead show how the colours are added by progressive dipping and coating.

The glass is hollow and would have been blown into a mould.

The mineral Mica is a Silicate that forms in very thin layers; the single sheet shows how transparent it can be. It was known as Muscovy Glass. Mica is mainly white but there is a black variety containing iron.

Coloured opaque glass can be used to fill small compartments of metal objects, and is known as enamel. Decoration using tiny compartments is known as milles feuilles – French for millions of leaves.

Engraved with coats of arms and symbols.

Flint is a variety of quartz. It is strong and heavy but can also be chipped away to create very fine sharp edges.

Flint is a variety of quartz. It is strong and heavy but can also be chipped away to create very fine sharp edges, sometimes serrated, as in these examples.

Quartz is a silicate that can form large clear crystals, known as Rock Crystal, or dark opaque lumps, known as Flint.

Found during building of the extension to the 1899 Beaney Institute building in 1933. The extension was funded by the Slater family, with a purpose-built picture gallery on the first floor (now the People and Places room) and lecture hall on the ground floor (now part of the Library).

These small bottles include many found during excavations in Canterbury. The double one has a label identifying it as found in Medinet-Tabou (Habou?) in Egypt. The bottles would have contained perfume, cosmetics, medicine and similar.

Obsidian is a glassy rock formed through cooling of volcanic lava so fast that few crystals form. It can be black or green (like examples in Colour and Camouflage), and sometimes ropy, like this piece.

Glass can be coloured by the addition of minerals. Gold creates ruby-coloured glass.

Sand is made of silica – glass.

Transparent Selenite is a variety of Gypsum, a hydrated calcium sulphate.

From the soda water supplier William Mayor of Silver Street, London.

Plain bowl with an opaque twist stem.

With opaque twist stems and engraved with floral sprigs.

Engraved with Jacobite roses, one also with a butterfly. Both have air twist stems, one of them ‘knopped’ with thicker blobs of glass. The air twist stems are created by trapping a bubble of air in molten glass then pulling and twisting as it cools.

Engraved decoration of barley and hops.

With knopped stems, one with air bubbles trapped for decoration.

The skeleton of an ocean sponge, known as Venus Flower Basket, is made of silica by the soft-bodied creature living inside. David Attenborough chose the Venus Flower Basket as one of the amazing creatures he would save if he had an ark, in a recent TV series.

With engraved decoration of flowers and a butterfly, and an opaque twist stem.

With a knopped stem and large bowl engraved with a coat of arms and initials.

With an air twist stem, the bowl is richly engraved with hops and barley.

With a faceted stem, the bowl with dog rose pattern engraved.