Article - Hot Tempered: Recreating a Lost Glass Recipe by Julie Bellemare, N. Astrid R. van Giffen, and Robert Schaut
So called ‘realgar’ glass was a Chinese innovation of the eighteenth century, named after its similarity in colour and appearance to bright orange-red arsenic sulfide mineral often found in volcanic deposits.
Realgar was long revered as a potent agent used in traditional Chinese medicine, said to provide protection against evil spirits and as an antidote to various toxins. In Daoist thought, the mineral was even said to confer immortality.
Alongside the longstanding symbolic value of realgar in the history of Chinese culture came the emergence of visually similar ‘realgar glass’. However, since early development at the start of the eighteenth century, through to widespread production at the imperial glassworks in Beijing, the recipe for glass imitating realgar since became lost. Through a series of practical and scientific experiments in both the lab and the workshop, Corning Museum of Glass embarked upon a fascinating journey to revive this lost method of glass production.
The original article, written by Julie Bellemare, N. Astrid R. van Giffen, and Robert Schaut appeared in Journal-18, A Journal of Eighteenth Century Art and Culture, to whom we offer thanks for permission to link to the resource below.
We also found the below video to be extremely useful in understanding more about this historic material. Realgar Glass: A Lecture by Julie Bellmare Phd, Curator of Early Modern Glass at The Corning museum of Art, NY.
Clickthrough thumbnail image reference: 清乾隆 雄黃料玻璃三足爐 Title: Tripod censer Period: Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Qianlong mark and period (1736–95) Date: mid-18th century Culture: China Medium: Glass Dimensions: H. 2 7/8 in. (7.3 cm); Diam. 4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm) Classification: Glass Credit Line: Purchase, The Vincent Astor Foundation and Barbara and William Karatz Gifts, 2020 Object Number: 2020.334 The Metropolitan Museum of Art (public domain image) accessed 09 FEB 2026