Bubble glass
Commonly associated with old glass, the bubble glass technique now consists of intentionally creating bubbles for artistic effect. Saverglass has brought together its finest glassmakers and R&D engineers to create a glass that combines our customary excellence with the finesse of perfectly mastered bubbling.

Producing
a masterful artistic effect

The formation of bubbles in glass was originally considered a defect, or presented as a characteristic of old glass.

However, bubble glass is now a decorative process where bubbles are intentionally created in the glass.

Although deliberately created, either by controlling the melting temperature to obtain imperfectly refined "malfin" glass or by using various processes depending on the desired effect, the bubbles are often irregular. However, this approach entails safety risks (namely robustness) and it is not possible to guarantee the desired finish, which will be different every time.

The new bubble glass process devised by Saverglass perfectly preserves the authenticity associated with this type of glass, while ensuring a high level of robustness. And the design brief included two more objectives: The esthetics and modernity of the finished product. As such, three levels of bubble intensity were developed to suit Saverglass's top-end glass: Extra-white.

The charms
of bubble glass

The bubble glass from Saverglass has many advantages:

  • Fine air bubbles in the glass are divided into three intensity levels (low, medium and high);
  • They are applied in a reproducible manner;
  • Which avoids any critical defects;
  • To the premium Saverglass "Extra-white" glass;
  • They are compatible with decorative processes including screen printing, savercoat® and hot stamping.

 

The history of bubble glass

Bubble glass: an age-old technique in glass esthetics

Emile Gallé, one of the most prominent figures in the Art Nouveau movement and an expert on all the technical possibilities of glass, created subtle "talking" glassware (his verrerie parlante) and illustrated this decoration with the words: "La pluie au bassin fait des bulles." (The rain in the pond makes bubbles.)

The renowned Art Deco glassmaker, Maurice Marinot, specialized in "malfin" glass and was an extremely sophisticated exponent of the art of bubbling, with his gold bubbles, known as "caviar", as his most notable example. He was followed in this trend by many glassmakers of the period, such as Daum, who in the 1920s produced a bubble glass accompanied by interlayer decoration, and then simple transparent bubble glass in 1940.

At the same time in Italy, Carlo Scarpa was creating glass lined with bollicine and metal leaves. But special mention must go to Napoleone Martinuzzi, with his original and "unmistakable" creations for Venini, made from pulegoso glass, a material made opaque by the profusion of small bubbles (or puleghe) inside.