Diatreta – The Ultimate Cire Perdue
Mar 19, 2025
Issue 3743
If the Cire Perdue or “lost wax” process was already known for casting bronze sculptures, why was the use of glass in place of the metal so challenging? The processes and challenges are described in both Paul V. Gardner’s The Glass of Frederick Carder and Tom Dimitroff’s Frederick Carder and Steuben Glass.
After months of experimentation in 1933 and 1934 Carder worked out the process, later described in detail by Paul Gardner. Gardner goes through each of the steps involved in making Cire Perdue, from modeling the original sculpture in clay to the casting in glass. The greatest challenge was in developing the various materials to be used in the process, especially in the materials for the final ceramic mold. Although this was a long and tedious process, it was relatively easy once the formula for the ceramic mold was perfected. This formula had to fulfill three requirements:
- Be a mixture that could be poured over the wax model and would set sufficiently hard to allow the wax to be melted out of it.
- Be sufficiently friable to break away from the glass readily after casting.
- Have sufficient strength to hold the weight of the glass during the melting process.
The difficulty in determining materials that would behave properly with glass at high temperatures resulted in Carder’s process being an iterative one.
Carder’s early Cire Perdue pieces were mostly plaques with low-relief portraits. As he developed better materials and techniques his Cire Perdue castings became more complex and the figures more three-dimensional. He would often bend or otherwise deform a sculpture to test whether the molten glass would run into various sections of the mold.
As Carder developed better materials and techniques his Cire Perdue castings became more complex and the figures more three-dimensional. As the mold materials improved, they became capable of withstanding higher temperatures and the glass could flow into more intricate molds. Carder would often bend or otherwise deform a sculpture to test whether the molten glass would run into various sections of the mold.
Carder’s ultimate achievement in Cire Perdue casting was the creation of Diatreta. These were intricate open-work vessels patterned after the delicate cut glass cage cups made by early Roman glassmakers. Carder made his Diatreta from 1945 to 1959.
As stated in Frederick Carder and Steuben Glass by Tom Dimitroff:
“With the supreme achievement of Diatreta,” Paul Hollister notes, “Frederick Carder reached the apex of his career when he was in his nineties. Ancient Diatreta epitomized the ultimate and glass technique; carving away the positive core of a vessel to suspend its skeleton. However laborious and risky Diatreta carving was, it was almost inconceivable that anyone could attempt to cast a complete cage cup in a single operation by cire perdue. Carder did.”
MORE ON CIRE PERDUE
We received this letter after our last edition of the Gazette:
The Historical Glass Museum of Redlands, California is fortunate to have an example of Frederick Carder’s cire perdu glass in its collection. The family of late Carder Steuben Club member Marshall Ketchum donated the piece to the Museum, where we display it with great pride (and gratitude.)
We are also fortunate to have an example of Intarsia glass, which was a donation from the estate of Dr. Vineau, DDS (along with some other Carder-era Steuben items.) Marshall kindly helped us verify or refute a Steuben attribution for several pieces that came from that collection.
— Michael Krumme President, Historical Glass Museum Foundation
Gazelle Gazette Archive
Carder Steuben Glass Association
19-20 September 2025
