Hakone Venetian Glass Museum, Ashigarashimo-gun, Japan

Hakone Venetian Glass Museum (箱根ガラスの森美術館) was opened in August 8, 1996, as a specialized museum of Venetian glass. The museum is located at Sengokuhara in Hakone town, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, and is surrounded by groves of green overlooking the Owakudani. Through the collection of the museum, including the masterpieces of the enameled goblet and the large dish in race glass made ​​during the Renaissance, you can overview the history of Venetian glass from 16th century to 20th century. There are four buildings around in the center of the garden and pond, which imagined the villa of European aristocracy – exhibition room (Venetian Glass Museum), museum shop, water mill (Acero), and café-restaurant (La Canzone). Hakone Venetian Glass Museum feel the beauty of Venetian glass in the ideal atmosphere and environment.

Venetian Grass:
Venice of Northern Italy’s water capital facing the azure Adriatic Sea. It was said that Venetian Glass originated in the invention of Roman Glass of ancient Roman times, and at that time many glass workshops were already made all over the Italian peninsula. The center of glass production is the power of 1291 to impose the current death penalty for the current Venetian republic “Glass manufacturers, workers, assistants, family members, etc., to migrate to Murano Island and those who escape outside the island” We will move to Murano Island next to Rialto Island by the protection policy. And to this day Murano is the center of the Venetian glass, and the people of Murano have been doomed to Venetian Grass.

Ancient Roman Empire
It is said that the history of Venetian glass begins with Roman glasses of the ancient Roman Empire (former first to fifth century). By the revolutionary invention’s “blown glass technique”, a lot of glass workshops have already been made all over the Italian peninsula at that time, its technology and products spread all over the world, but eventually, along with the collapse of the West Roman Empire (476 years) It declines.

Rialto Island
In the 8th century, the center of the then Republic of Venice moved to Rialto and it is said that many glass workshops were moved to this island along with the construction rush of churches and cathedrals in various parts of the island.

Booming in the glass industry
In 1078, the reconstruction of St. Mark’s cathedral began, glass mosaic was applied to all walls, and in the literature at that time, 29 glass workers were fined for violating customs and regulations of glass manufacture There is also a statement that the imposition of the industry in the glass industry is imagined.

Government protection and management
In the 13th century, a Venezia-Glass cooperative association was formed in 1268, import contracts of glass material with Syria’s largest glass producing area Antioquia, direct control of firewood for rationalization of fuel, control in summer The proactive intervention of the government, such as prohibition of the government, will be strengthened. And in 1291, under the protection of the Government of the Republic of Venice, “We intend to make all of glass manufacturers, workers, assistants, families, etc. migrate intensively to Murano Island and impose a death penalty for those who escape outside the island.” Management with severe punishment system began, and after that Venetian Glass will develop mainly in Murano Island.

The heyday of Venetian glass
In the 13th and 14th centuries, it develops especially under the influence of Byzantine and Islam, etc. in the technique and design of enamel coloring, and in the 15th century, it further matures against the background of Italy · Renaissance. In the latter half of the sixteenth century, delicate and brilliant new techniques such as diamond point carving, lace glasses, crystal glass, ice crack glasses, marble glasses, etc. were successively produced, and glass works of various forms and functions Has been created, Venetian glass will reach its peak.

Prosperity
Since the 14th century, the glass industry of Venice, which grew to such an extent that it occupied 90% of the European market at once due to the monopoly of Mediterranean trade, the benefits of the Italian Renaissance prosperity, etc. In the 17th century, the British lead crystal glass The invention, the cultivation of the bohemian glass of the Holy Roman Empire, quartz-carved baroque glass fashions and the like are faced with a crisis. Created in this era to combat Britain and Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia) is a gorgeous work heavily using decorative stem of dragon legs which can be said to be excessive decoration and applique decoration.

Age of hardship
In the 18th century, a new industrialism started in Europe, each country began high-tariff import of imported goods to protect their domestic industries, in Glass producing countries the export sharply declined, the glass factory went bankrupt, Murano island also exception It was not. Every effort is made on Murano Island to overcome this difficulty, such as finer mosaic products, interior decoration of church and jewelry making, export to Africa and Southeast Asia. However, in 1797 the demise of the republic of the Republic of Venice ended the era of the government’s glass industry asylum, and in ten years later in 1806, the venerable glass craftsmen’s union, which lasted 500 years in Murano island, will be forced to dissolve.

Modernization of Venetian Glass
It was a mysterious Murano glass industry, but a new era starts to move. In the 19th century, when we were entering the path of modernization, we will create a boom in making museums, museums and museums as a stage for new industries and education. Necessary workers of Murano Island find a way to make reprints of ancient works, requiring old missing items for the construction of museums and the like. Later, a new departure began from the era of suffering, such as restoration of old church mural painting based on glass / mosaic technology based on color glass which can not be imitated in the glass industry of other countries, cultivation of a new genre such as the interior department . Even at Murano Island, new movements such as the construction of modern production factories, the improvement of closed constitution, the establishment of children’s educational institutions, the construction of glass museums, the holding of exhibitions and research meetings are born one after another. In this way, Venetian Glass escaped the hardship and began to take the path of modernization through a partnership between a trained and traditional engineer.

Fuchsia flower frontal statue Goblet around 1500 Venice
As a collection of the Rothschild family, work that was praised as a masterpiece in masterpieces. The distinctive atmosphere created by the ornamental pattern called the flower of Islam and the Byzantine style forms the most iconic representation of Venetian prosperity as a key point of East-West cultural exchanges.

Lace / glass with a lid Goblet from the 16th century to the 17th century Venice
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the world prestige, the race of Venetian specialties, which became the admiration for the European aristocracy. A race where the Glass craftsmen of Murano is willing to do their creative work and to be protected as secrets of outsiders, as to whether the manipulated race pattern can somehow be contained in colorless and transparent glass · Works of glasses.

Van Geristi family crest sentence Compote from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 17th century Venice
Early in the 16th century, the technique of diamond point carving originated in Italy originally tried to incorporate the delicate beautiful design and popularity of Venice’s famous lace into the glass, using the tip of diamond, It is a technique to engrave patterns etc. with fine lines and dots on the surface of the surface.

Milfiori · Glass Flower Vase 1890 ~ ​​1910 Venice
It is a type of mosaic / glass that combines colored glasses, its origin dates back to the ancient Roman era. It is a flower-patterned mosaic glass with various colors and it is called “Milfiori · Glass” meaning a thousand flowers from where it seems that flowers are blooming throughout the vessel.

Dolphin leg leg red compote 19 century Venetia Salvi Art Studio
Salvi Art Studio was founded in Murano Island by lawyer Antonio Salviarti in 1859 and produced glassware and chandeliers that restored the works made in the heyday of the former period and made a part of the revival of Venetian Glass that had been declining It was carried. This work was made using pinkish red that was particularly loved by glass craftsmen of Murano using melted gold as a coloring agent.

Marble · Grass · Decanter 16 ~ 17th century Venice
This work was made with the motif of a marble (marble) pattern. Various colors are in harmony and it looks like a real marble. Also, this work is also called Calsedonio (red ball marrow) because it turns into a beautiful red color like the setting sun through the light.