Incorporating previously prepared elements into a piece of hot glass. This technique can be used for example to create handles or feet for utilitarian objects, or to introduce a decoration in relief onto the surface of the piece. This decoration can be a simple wrap ( strands of glass of variable thickness wrapped hot around a turning surface), a filigree, a stopper, or a more elaborate bit like some of those created by Gallé, Daum and the Nancy School. Through exploration of relief and modeling this technique is well suited for a sculptural approach to glassmaking.

Its history is as old as the history of glass itself: the core formed alabastra already had small lateral handles applied hot. The medieval German “romers” had feet decorated with bits that were part functional and part decorative. Certain periods in the history of glassmaking have preferred the decorative use of bitwork. Such is the Baroque which saw the flourishing of hand shaped wings and filigree upon glassware a la facon de Venise. However it was the artist Emile Gallé who best knew how to use and develop the sculptural possibilities of bitwork, pushing his research to the extreme in his last masterpieces such as “Hand with Seaweed” or “Hand with Seaweed and Shells”-- true glass sculptures, half blown, half solid, made shortly before his death. His emulator Daum, also from Nancy, was faced in turn with similar challenges. Several of his vases use bits to create a veritable sculpted decor, built piece by piece; as in his “Vase with Grapes” (1908) where the wraps define the vine’s branches and the drops of purple glass form one by one the clusters of grapes. It even happens that sometimes the element to be attached hot is already a sculpture of its own: a figurative miniature of at a cicada, a dragonfly, a june bug, or some other insect for example, poised and ready to land on the piece.

Certain pieces by Fabience Picaud of France show her interest in the sculptural possibilities of this technique.

BARBIER - LUDWIG Georges, “La main aux algues et aux coquilages- A propos du symbolisme d’Emile Gallé”, Arts Nouveaux, 1991, N°6 SALMON Béatrice, BARDIN Christophe, “Daum -Collection du musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy”, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2000