Drinking Glasses, 1750 – 1800

These beautiful drinking glasses served wine. The bowls are much smaller than those served in bars and pubs today because wine was stronger than it is now.

It the 1600s most delicate drinking glasses were imported from Europe, especially Venice. Britain’s decorative glass industry took off from the early 1700s.

The incredible pattern in the stem is called an opaque or cotton twist. Pressing white enamel rods into molten glass and then twisting them inside a mould make these amazing patterns. Skilled glass blowers made lots of stems from one long length. The bowl, the stem and the foot of the glass were blown separately, and then stuck together.

You can see these glasses on display in the Story of Wakefield gallery, upstairs at Wakefield Museum.