Malachite Glass

Malachite glass is a decorative glass that is made to look like real malachite, which is a type of copper carbonate. Many times the malachite glass looks like marble, containing either white or black swirls in the green glass. This type of glass was first manufactured in Austria in the nineteenth century. A glass company named Loetz created an opaque green glass which looked like real malachite and was shaped into vases, bowls, plates, and other practical everyday items. The glass would either remain plain or be further decorated with engravings or enameled. Figures would also be carved into the final glassware shape, to make it look like a real stone carving.

The Bohemian malachite glass technique eventually made its way to England and the United States in the late nineteenth century. English glass companies like Davidson and Sowerby continued to make the malachite glass with white streaks and swirls to look like marble. Green was not the only color used in making this type of glass by these companies. Both purple and blue opaque glass containing these streaks was also made although they were not termed malachite glass with the departing from the green color. These art glass pieces were just as beautiful as the green pieces and provided a variety for those seeking the look but in another color.

In the early twentieth century the malachite glass molds in Bohemia were created by Curt Schlevogt for a line named “Ingrid” for the Riedel Glass Company. Bohemian malachite glass is till made today and some older molds are still used along with newer molds in making glassware. Most of the pieces made for the “Ingrid” line were labeled, making them easy to identify. Other modern glass companies also continue to manufacture malachite glass in animal figures, vases, bowls and plates. In this case the malachite is not always dark green; sometimes the color is closer to jade green but the glass still has the white streaks in it.

Image Credit: Panfiladzius, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.