Prunted goblet
Saturday, 17 November 2007
We learned many new vocabulary words at the Corning Museum of Glass, which I should have expected but didn’t.
Some words describe the glass objects, or parts of them. Others derive from the manufacturing process. All of them are not in the vocabularies of most of us. Take these two words: goblet and prunt. You are most likely familiar with the first and probably not with the second.
Technically, a goblet is a bowl on a stem supported by a foot.
Prunts are dabs or blobs of glass attached to the stem. They are both decorative, and sometimes embellished with a stamp, and can help improve the drinker’s grip.
This goblet (sorry, I didn’t photo the identification tag, but I suspect, hmm, maybe German?) has green prunts that have been stamped with a knobbly texture.
These goblets are fairly large, would have been relatively costly for most households, held alcoholic beverages, and may have been passed among diners—all the more reason for increasing the likelihood of safe passage by enhancing the grip.