The Corning Museum of Glass is essentially a museum about a material.

Over the years, curators here have amassed a rich and comprehensive range of glass objects and research materials on the subject. Items range from buttons to huge glass-making machines and from contemporary sculpture to ancient flasks.

The museum is host to a new exhibition focused on the curiosities of glassmaking that invites visitors to consider how glass can effectively mimic nature, how it has been explored for mystical and scientific purposes, and how industry has used glass to produce an array of unusual items, some quite peculiar and others inspired.

Tina Oldknow, the museum’s Curator of Modern Glass, searched the Museum’s storage and brought to light more than 100 wonderfully odd and mysterious objects. They range from trick drinking glasses to an optical model of the human eye and from ancient amulets to ward off evil to tortoiseshell-rimmed lenses worn by Victorian tourists to frame artistic views of nature as though they were paintings.

Cabinet of Curiosities

The concept of the exhibition was inspired by showcases of curiosities of yesteryear. Tina expects a lot of interest in the show because she thinks it will tweak our normal way of looking at things. She sees the orgy of strange and wonderful artifacts as almost surreal and suggests that the array helps us to discover new relationships between the objects. In some cases we look at color; in others we study their use; and in some displays we discover form.

The museum is arranged chronologically, but this exhibit mixes vintage and contemporary objects.

“What we are attempting to do here,” Tina said, “is to present an almost anthropological, rather than an historical, focus.”

A forerunner to the exhibit is the Wunderkammer, or ‘room of wonders,’ filled with archeological artifacts, assorted trophy animals, watches, fanciful machines, and treasures. Many seventeenth-century great houses had their “cabinets of curiosities,” which historians see as the first sign of the collecting bug. Tina, however, wanted a more Victorian feeling to this exhibition.

“I can’t underestimate the fun aspect of this show,” she said. “I wanted a sense of discovery and wonder.” She said further that the impulse to collect and display curiosities is both timeless and universal.

Thematic Groups

Each case on the museum’s West Bridge holds a different thematic group. We look at glass made in nature by studying geological specimens like fulgurites, which are made when lightning strikes desert sand. These are sometimes referred to as “Libyan desert glass.” Tektites (glass made from meteoric impacts) are also included; Obsidian (a glassy rock made in volcanoes) can be found here; and a sample of Trinitite (a glass made during the test of the atomic bomb in White Sands, New Mexico in 1945) is on display. “Glass is a state of matter,” Oldknow commented as she told about hard candies that are really sugar in a glassy state.

A particularly interesting grouping of objects is the apotropaic glass, which was designed to ward off evil. Here the viewer can see ancient, as well as modern, eye beads, Japanese magamata amulets, and witch balls. The magamata amulets are curved glass beads buried in graves as offering to the deities. Included in this group is also a contemporary fetish by Laura Danfer. Her Witch Pot (1999) is full of magical things, a sort of alchemical vessel. Tina is quick to point out that the modern Christmas ornament is descended from the witch ball.

Medical Glass and Other Oddities

Another case holds medical glass such as glass eyes, an antique woman’s urinal, bleeding glasses, and the like. One display further along the bridge contains household objects made of glass. There is glass cutlery, a glass chain, a glass and steel iron, glass fire grenades, and glass bullets from World War II. These were made by Corning to help alleviate the metal shortage during the war. Other highlights include a glass glove, a shining glass slipper made by Frederick Carder at Steuben for a film production of Cinderella that was never realized, and a sales catalogue for glass coffins. Among the oddest of all the items is a 1903 patent for a method of preserving the dead in solid glass.

Glass that imitates other materials can be seen in a nearby case. Among the most beautiful of these objects is a covered sapphire blue goblet that mimics the gemstone. There is glass that imitates ruby and chalcedony. You can see glass that simulates porcelain. There are examples of Uranium glass and Mercury glass as well.

Another case sports odd uses of glass. Curiosities include glass pavements, building blocks of glass, dresses made of glass cloths, and the glass flowers of Harvard University.

“The natural world has long inspired artists, including those who work with glass,” Oldknow sad. “We also present diverse objects such as glass insects, a human tailbone cast in glass by Kiki Smith (Tail, 1997), an eighteenth-century French diorama of flame-worked figures in a grotto, and a display case that has been turned into an imaginary beehive by Michael Rogers (Murmur of the Bees, 2006).”

A Fun Show

The most important thing about this unusual show is that it’s fun: the public is going to love this exhibition. The assemblage of objects is artistic, scientific, mystical, practical, and quite mad.

Curiously Interesting, through October 21, The Corning Museum of Glass, One Museum Way, Corning, NY 14830, (800) 732-6845, www.cmog.org.