Bernardo Perotto: Louis XIV's Glass Table.

LOUIS XIV's GLASS TABLE.
Very occasionally, a chapter in the history of glass has to be
rewritten because some lost masterpiece is rediscovered.
One such momentous event occurred in 1988 when a piece of glass
furniture - the top of a unique table of exuberant Baroque design,
worthy of a Kunstkammer - was recognized as having been listed during
Louis XIV's reign among the items belonging to the French Crown before
1681 and as having the orignal inventory number , 276, still stamped on it.
Furthermore , when il was again described in the royal inventory
of 1729, a more precise entry established that the top had been
supported on five glass columns: "Une table couverte de divers morceaux
de verre fondu et mèlé de plusieurs couleurs , liés par u n
compartiment de cuivre doré ciselé, fort léger......." The five round
columns also covered with glass.
The survival of these five columns was first suggested by Paul
Hollister, who in 1977 had discovered and recorded fours matching glass
columns in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and a fifth column
of similar length in the British Museum , London (acquired in 1873).
Consequently, historians of French glassmaking are now seeking to
incorporate this extraordinary achievement within the "oeuvre" of
Bernard Perrot, who is generally regarded as the most eminent glassmaker
in France during the second half of the seventeenth century. However,
his Italian origin have now been established: he was born on 26 June
1619 in Altare [.....]. Da " 5000 YEARS OF GLASS" 2012, The British
Museum Press.