The museum website is constantly updated with new exhibits. Today we present updates in the section "Art Glass art and Ceramics”.

The history of glass began in Egypt around six thousand years ago. Ancient glassblowers melted glass over open hearths in clay bowls. The fused pieces were thrown into water, where they cracked, and then they were ground to dust with millstones and melted again. Sand, chalkstone and alkali, either organic (plant ash) or inorganic (sodium carbonate) were used as starting materials for making glass. Smelter slags consisting of copper, cobalt and manganese compounds were used as colouring agents.
In our country, the first examples of glass jewellery and utensils date back to the 11th century. The first glassworks were built in 1635 near Moscow, and there were already six such factories in the 18th century. Despite such an ancient history, glass production became widespread only in the late 19th century thanks to the invention of the Martin-Siemens* furnace and developing of the industrial method of sodium carbonate production.

The museum Video Archive features a series of nine clips demonstrating the diversity of the museum Collection section “Art Glass and Ceramics”.

A review article “Art glass production technologies” is in the section "Articles and Reviews".