Trick Glasses

In Europe at the end of the sixteenth century, artful and ingenious glasses designed for various drinking games began to appear. They stimulate togetherness, provide a lot of entertainment and, of course, eventually great drunkenness. Trick glasses are glasses that somehow surprise or fool the drinker. If you don’t know how to use them, some glasses will splash wine all over you. Others are so ingeniously made that you have to study them before you understand at all how to use them. There are glasses with unusual shapes – the famous boot, but also a fabulous animal, a horn and even a gun. Still others make strange noises when you drink from them. It is precisely their playful character that make them technical tours de force, the pinnacle of what glassblowers could make at the time. They showcase the skills of their makers and with that, the wealth and standing of their owners.

Internationally renowned glass expert Kitty Laméris and glass artist and expert on glassmaking techniques Marc Barreda conducted large-scale research into the use and history of trick glasses, their users and the way they were made. It led to groundbreaking new insights. Trick Glasses is the definitive guide to this playful phenomenon of Renaissance Europe.