How Our Hand-blown Glassware is Made
Introducing the Bellotto Hand-blown Glassware
Villa Bologna Pottery is all about craft and artistry. Our range of hand-blown glassware shares the same values. We don’t do mass production, we’re only interested in making pieces that are completely handmade and unique.
The Bellotto edit features coloured, hand-blown glass carafes and tumblers — all created by skilled glass-blowing artists in Malta. Our glass pieces are designed to bring a touch of the Mediterranean to your home and look wonderful combined together or styled as a set.
We have introduced hand-blown glassware to our collection as, similarly to our ceramics, they are entirely handmade by talented artists in Malta. No corners are cut and each piece is an individual labour of love. Made to last and stand the test of time, their elegant form and design are truly beautiful.
In this blog, we explore how our hand-blown glassware is made and go into more detail about this ancient craft.
What is hand-blown glass?
Each item from our Bellotto collection is delicately handmade using traditional hand-blown methods in Malta.
Hand-blown glass is made by melting down multi-coloured beads under very high temperatures that rise to around 1600°C. This is the optimum temperature to melt glass and at this heat, it transforms into a crystalline substance that has a very bright orange tone. This is also known as molten glass. At this point, the glass is removed from the oven and placed on top of a steel sheet in a spherical shape, which is then glooped onto a metal tube for the next stage of the process.
How is glass hand-blown?
The art of hand-blowing glass is carried out by skilled artisans who inflate molten glass into a bubble using blowpipes. The glassblowers also use their hands and basic tools to manipulate the molten glass into unique forms that create our glass carafes and tumblers. This extraordinary form of glassmaking is an ancient craft, believed to date back to the middle of the 1st century BC.
During the blowing process, thinner layers of glass cool faster than thicker ones and become more gloopy, allowing for these layers to be moulded to create a uniform thickness.
As air enters the molten glass through the blowpipe, it creates striking, unique shapes and designs. The glassmaker nimbly flips and forms the molten glass with impressive care and confidence. Their expertise means the quick motions and flows to transform molten glass into elegant formations come naturally to them.
There are many ways to embed patterns and colour in the blown glass. One technique includes rolling the molten glass in powdered colour. More intricate patterns can be created by using rods of coloured glass and rods cut in cross-sections that reveal the swirled and rippled patterns.
Once the glass reaches its final shape, it is placed in a furnace to cool down for anywhere between a few hours to a few days.
Our handmade glass carafes are designed to bring a touch of the Mediterranean to your home and look wonderful combined with our hand-blown glass tumblers. Shop our new Bellotto hand-blown glassware.