I have tried very hard to find examples of cased glass (transparent fused over color, like the clear over amber in the middle of Linda's example on the left) that were made before the 16th century.
Opaque-over-translucent cameo glass existed in ancient times, but it's extremely difficult to find clear glass fused over colored glass (in separate layers, not within the same layer) in curved containers that are pre-1485.
I've looked reaaaaaally really hard. They might be out there, I keep hoping one will turn up, but I haven't seen one yet.
In the Middle Ages in Syria, Egypt, Italy, and Bohemia, they used enamel to add layers of color rather than fusing the glass in layers (they knew about caned glass, different colors within the same layer, but not in separate layers for the breadth of the container).
There are many examples of enameled glass in the Venetian and Corning glass museums. Here is a typical late-15th-century Venetian example from the Corning Museum. This was the popular style of design (note the dot patterns) and the more common way to fabricate them as glass moved into the Renaissance period:
![[Image: GFig9.jpg?itok=Zsou71mA]](https://www.cmog.org/sites/default/files/images/GFig9.jpg?itok=Zsou71mA)
Opaque-over-translucent cameo glass existed in ancient times, but it's extremely difficult to find clear glass fused over colored glass (in separate layers, not within the same layer) in curved containers that are pre-1485.
I've looked reaaaaaally really hard. They might be out there, I keep hoping one will turn up, but I haven't seen one yet.
In the Middle Ages in Syria, Egypt, Italy, and Bohemia, they used enamel to add layers of color rather than fusing the glass in layers (they knew about caned glass, different colors within the same layer, but not in separate layers for the breadth of the container).
There are many examples of enameled glass in the Venetian and Corning glass museums. Here is a typical late-15th-century Venetian example from the Corning Museum. This was the popular style of design (note the dot patterns) and the more common way to fabricate them as glass moved into the Renaissance period: