Etienne's cup

Art is Service, Mold for Etienne’s Pelican

I was contacted to provide glass for Etienne’s Pelican. I started looking at roman glass and doing a molded glass. I also looked at his heraldry. My first draft was to put a pelican and fleur de lis on the glass with interlocking rings which are a big roman motif and are part of his heraldry.

This mold is loosely based on roman mold glasses of the first century common era which are also known as gladiator glasses.  Many of the ideas and motifs are based on glasses found in serval books showing molded roman glasses.

Very few molds and fragments of molds have survived from period. But from traces left in the glass we know that molds were made from plaster, clay (terracotta), wood, and metal in period.  Most of the research of the molds comes from the pieces of glass found.