Drinking Bowl (Maigelein)

Small drinking bowls decorated with a cross-ribbed patterns survive in enormous numbers, although most are now in fragments. They seem to have been widely used in many homes of the 1400s and early 1500s. Made of Waldglas, or forest glass, they were produced in rural workshops located in forests where there were large supplies of wood to fuel the glass furnaces. The forest factories mainly produced utilitarian wares: simple vessels, bottles and containers, and window glass. Scholars know that many glasshouses dotted the forests, but the workshops' exact locations remain largely unknown.