Beaker

Art Historical Context

This elegant 17th-century beaker from Northern Europe, likely Germany, stands as a fine example of early modern glassmaking craftsmanship. Crafted from colorless yet slightly purplish graylead glass, it measures 26.4 cm in height—tall and stately for a drinking vessel of its time. Housed in the Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1975, it the region's burgeoning glass industry, which rivaled Italian innovations during the Baroque era. The beaker was created using blown and pattern-molded techniques, hallmarks of Northern European glassworkers. Molten glass was fir...