BY Safir Kaylan | September 6, 2010

Color twist glassware

Color twist glassware originated in Venice in the early 16th-century. Its Ottoman adaptation, Çesm-i bülbül, or “nightingale's eye”, is a type of glassware design, was developed in Istanbul in the early 19th century. A craftsman was sent by an Ottoman sultan to study glass techniques in Venice. Upon his return, one of the techniques he brought back – the Venetian Filligrana Latticino – was improved to create spiral and twisted patterns that imitate the eye of a nightingale. Today, his successors make pitchers, vases, jugs, and decanters in blue, white, red and emerald green as well as hookah pipes in clear or white glass with fine stripes of blue, cyan and white.

This entirely hand-made glassware has a reputation for its distinctive swirls of blue and white in clear glass. Today, Şişecam-Paşabahçe makes this color twist glass design for museums and private collections. It is also sold to individual buyers at their retail stores. A great amount of skill, experience, hard work and creativity are required to create each piece. A mix of sand, lime and additives are heated to high temperatures while they fuse into molten glass. With the help of a rod, the molten glass is twisted to form a ball. Next, the glass maker blows into the rod while the ball inflates into a hot balloon and fills the mould, forming a cylinder shape. At this point the hot colored glass rods are blown upon until they fuse to the cold glass rods. Through squeezing, twisting and pulling, the desired glass object is shaped. The pieces are heated again before the final moulding; they are blown and twisted one more time to form color spirals. At the end, special tools are used to form the edges and rims.