Merlyn Griffiths, a stained-glass student at the University of York, is appealing for information regarding crizzled glass. She is currently researching the crizzled purple glass found in a nineteenth-century church in Yorkshire, though it is understood that this problem was once more prevalent in green glass.
Example of crizzling. Photograph by M. Griffiths
Crizzling has been called by various names, including ‘glass sickness’, ‘de-vitrification’ and ‘craquele’, and denotes a process of deterioration whereby micro-cracking forms throughout the body of the glass, leading to a loss in transparency and, in severe cases, disintegration of the glass. On account of the nature of crizzling, many examples have since been replaced by new glass, making it difficult to ascertain which windows once contained crizzled glass. Merlyn is interested in finding out more about other windows that either now contain or once contained glass suffering from crizzling, of any period, colour, manufacturer, or geographical area.
If any Vidimus readers are able to offer any anecdotal information about such glass, please contact Merlyn Griffiths directly at mrag500@york.ac.uk. Thank you!
