Bard Graduate Center
38 West 86th StreetRealgar Glass: Learning from the Archive, the Lab, and the Hot Shop
A lecture by Julie Bellemare (BGC PhD ’21; The Corning Museum of Glass)
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
38 West 86th Street, Lecture Hall
gallery@bgc.bard.edu
$15 General | $12 Seniors | Free for people associated with a college or university, people with museum ID, people with disabilities and caregivers, and BGC members
Since 2019, the Corning Museum of Glass has been investigating its realgar-colored glass objects. A Chinese innovation, this red and orange glass was developed in the early decades of the eighteenth century and used at the Qing imperial glassworks to create a range of vessels—but the secret to its making was subsequently lost. The presence of a broken snuff bottle in our collection enabled more extensive scientific testing to understand the precise chemical composition of this glass. Armed with this recipe, materials scientists batched and recreated this historical glass in the lab. Most recently, the Museum’s Hot Glass team used this new glass in wood-burning and gas furnaces. These experiments revealed the importance of heat control and rapid cooling to the creation of different hues in the same glass object, providing insights into how eighteenth-century glassblowers might have worked with this unique material. As part of this ongoing project, we are considering the effects of mold-blowing on colors and patterns, and exploring cold-working techniques. Supplemented by archival findings, this presentation will report on the knowledge gained from the recreation of realgar glass in the lab and in the hot shop, arguing for the importance of these research methods to art historical inquiry.
An alumni spotlight lecture.
Julie Bellemare joined the Corning Museum of Glass as Curator of Early Modern Glass in 2022. In this role, she is responsible for stewarding, researching, and expanding the Museum’s collection of glass produced between 1250 and 1825. Specializing in Chinese enamels and glass, she holds a PhD in Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture from Bard Graduate Center and a Master’s in the History of Art and Visual Culture from the University of Oxford. She has also held research positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Asian Art and the Brooklyn Museum, and has published widely on global decorative arts of the eighteenth century.
Image: Vase. China, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Qianlong period (1736–1795). Realgar-colored glass. H. 15.5 cm. The Corning Museum of Glass, 67.6.1.
Please join us before this event from 5-6pm for Object Labs
At BGC, we use an object-centered approach to advance the study of the decorative arts, design history, and material culture. Join our student educators before our April and May public events to learn about some of the objects in BGC's Study Collection. Each week we will showcase three objects carefully selected from the collection, which includes over 3,000 objects in a variety of media.
May 13
38 West 86th Street, 5–6 pm
An "Object Labs" sign will be visible in the lobby, and staff will direct interested visitors where to go.
Founded in 2011, the BGC Study Collection supports student research by providing opportunities for hands-on, close-up examination of objects. Learn more about the BGC Study Collection here.
Tue, May 13, 2025 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Bard Graduate Center
38 West 86th Street
Bard Graduate Center is devoted to the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through research, advanced degrees, exhibitions, publications, and events.
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