Glass Information and Education

facon de Venise, a la: Literally, in the Venetian style. A term used to describe high-quality glassware made throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Favrile glass: A type of iridescent glass in Art Nouveau style developed by Tiffany c.1892 and inspired perhaps by Roman glass with iridescence resulting from weathering.

filigree (Utalian filigrana, 'thread-grained'): A decorative technique in which opaque white or coloured glass threads are embedded in clear metal to form a very fine network pattern.

finial: An ornamental know surmounting a decorative glass object or veseel, most often on its cover, where it also serves as a handle.

flashing: Applying a thin layer of glass of a contrasting colour to the body of a glass object by dipping. The coating, much thinner than a casing or an overlay, may be cut to reveal the glass beneath it to form a pattern.

fluting: A pattern on cut glass consisting of either rounded or mitred parallel grooves.

flux: An alkaline substance, such as potash or soda, which is essential glass-making ingredient added to the batch to aid the fusion of the silica, another essential ingredient.

foot-ring, foot-rim: A slightly projecting rim on the bottom of a glass object, on which the object stands.

forest glass (verre defougere, Waldglass): Glass of primitive quality, generally greenish but sometimes brownish or yellowish, produced in European glasshouses in medieval and later times. Ashes of burnt wood or ferns provided the alkali content of this glass.

free-blown: Formed and shaped solely of a blowpipe.

frit: Certain preheated ingredients of glass, cooled and ground into a powder and added to the other ingredients to facilitate fusion of the batch.

fusing: the bonding of two or more sections of glass