Pâte de verre is a very cumbersome process. I try to commune with those ancient craftsmen who toiled away at their craft, gathering sand and chemicals, sculpting vessels with wax, building plaster moulds, losing wax, charging glass powder, heating the charged moulds with wood fire and then removing the plaster after they cool down. With great sympathy, I have seen a glass bottle from ancient Egypt where the craftsman had got tired of scraping out the plaster from the interior of the vessel and left it in place.

   It is no wonder the technique was completely abandoned for 1900 years, since glassblowing was invented. It took too much time and effort. Then, when it was revived in France in the early 1900s, the artists did not see fit to leave records of how they accomplished their wondrous work.