The Corning Museum of Glass has awarded two Rakow Grants for Glass Research in 2009 to fund a research project on the trading of glass in the Middle East and India, as well as a book on Mexican glass….
The Corning Museum of Glass has awarded two Rakow Grants for Glass Research in 2009 to fund a research project on the trading of glass in the Middle East and India, as well as a book on Mexican glass. Stphanie Boulogne, a research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire d“Archologie Mdivale Mditerranenne at the Universit de Provence in Aix-en-Provence, France, is working on a dissertation about glass bangles from Bilad al-Sham (a region encompassing Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon). She is exploring trade between the Middle East and India through a study of the techniques, colours and designs of 14th- to 17th-century glass. The study of [the multicoulored] glass bangles excavated in Bilad al-Sham and attributed to medieval and later times . . . showed [that they came from many different places in] the Near East, Iraq, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, India, Nepal, and sub-Saharan Africa, she says. In addition, the research on provenance of the glass bangles discovered at Khirbat Faris and Tell Abu Sarbut sites located in central Jordan, had revealed . . . the possibility of . . . local origin. Studies of glass in India are few, Dr. Boulogne notes, and her research will be directed toward finding more information on glass from India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia. Boulogne received her Ph.D. from the Universit Paris IV Sorbonne. Some of her initial research around the glass bangles discovered at Khirbat Faris and Tell Abu Sarbut will be published in the Corning Museum“s 2009 Journal of Glass Studies, which annually presents original research on topics relating to glass. She is the author of several articles on glass bangles, and her book on bangles from Bilad al-Sham is to be published later this year. G. Eason Eige, who retired as curator at the Andrews Pueblo Pottery & Art Gallery in Albuquerque, N.M., says he plans to unravel the confusion and prejudice surrounding glass produced in Mexico by producing a well-researched and richly illustrated book that includes more than 1,500 significant objects from glass museums throughout that country. The book, he explains, is an effort to reveal the history, craftsmanship and diversity of Mexican glass. It will trace the origin and development of glassmaking in Mexico from the late 18th through 20th centuries, emphasizing glass made in the 1900s. Eige has collected more than 2,000 examples of Mexican glass, most of which were made between 1930 and 1970. In order to research and secure photographs of older, rarer glass, he will visit glass museums, glassmakers, and glass collections, including two private collections in Mexico City. He also plans to photograph glassmakers at work. Eige was chief curator at the Huntington Museum of Art in Huntington, W. Va., from 1976 to 1996. He is the author of A Century of Glassmaking in West Virginia (Huntington: Huntington Galleries, 1980), co-author of Blenko Glass, 1930-1953 (Marietta, Ohio: Antique Publications, 1987), and a contributor to Wheeling Glass, 1829-1939: Collection of the Oglebay Institute Glass Museum (Wheeling, W. Va.: the institute, 1994). Mr. Eige also served as editor of the Glass Club Bulletin, and he has lectured widely on glass-related topics. The Rakow Grant for Glass Research was founded by the late Dr. and Mrs. Leonard S. Rakow. It is awarded annually to support scholarly research on the history of glass and glassmaking.