18th Century Wine Flutes with Mixed Twist Stem

• Stem - In drinking glasses the stem is that section of the glass that joins the bowl to the foot. In mass produced glasses is usually solid and of cylindrical shape, but in antique drinking glasses it may be long and short and in various styles or with decoration, such as air twist, baluster, collared, faceted, hollow, knopped, teardrop, twisted or incised.
• Circa - A Latin term meaning 'about', often used in the antique trade to give an approximate date for the piece, usually considered to be five years on either side of the circa year. Thus, circa 1900 means the piece was made about 1900, probably between 1895 and 1905. The expression is sometimes abbreviated to c.1900.
• Twist - A rod of glass in which there is one or several threads or tapes of coloured glass, or bubbles of air embedded, which is then twisted to give an attractive appearance. The technique is mostly associated with the stems of Georgian glasses. The technique was in use from about the 1740s to the 1760s.
  
  Collectors have identified over 150 variations of twist decoration. One of the most common is the air twist which as the name implies, has one or more columns of air embedded within the rod. A colour twist has one or more coloured tapes, usually opaque but sometimes translucent. other common types of twist include cable, corkscrew, enamel, gauze, lace, opaque and thread.
• Bowl - With drinking glasses, the bowl is the hollow section of the glass that holds the liquid. Many glasses were mounted on a stem joined to a foot, others were cylindrical, of tumbler shape. The size and shape of the bowl was determined by the type of liquids they were meant to hold. Shapes used included bell shaped, conical (funnel), bucket shaped, trumpet, cup, ogee, funnel, cylindrical and rounded.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• glass, types or items - Georgian twist stem glasses 218