Lead crystal glass
Vidrio de plomo (cristal flint)
- Date
- 1674-1676 · confidence high
- Place
- London, England
- Credited to
- George Ravenscroft (1674 patent)
- People
- 👤 George Ravenscroft1632–1683
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
Glass containing lead oxide, bright, heavy and easy to cut, which corrected the crizzling defect of Venetian cristallo. It broke Murano's monopoly and supplied the flint glass used in achromatic lenses.
Ravenscroft worked with Venetian glassmakers who had emigrated to the Savoy.
What it led to
- The English and Irish cut-glass industry (Waterford)
- Precision optics (flint glass for achromatic doublets)
- Bourgeois table glassware
Built on
- Venetian cristallo
- Coal-furnace glass
- Calcined flint silica
Made possible
- Achromatic lens1733 (Hall) / 1758 (Dollond)
- Cut glass
- Optical prisms