Orrefors glass
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Orrefors glass, fine 20th-century glass produced by a glasshouse at Orrefors in the south of Sweden. In 1916 and 1917 the Orrefors glasshouse hired the painters Simon Gate and Edvard Hald, respectively, to become the first artists engaged directly in glass design. One of their innovations was Graal glass, in which coloured relief decorations were encased in a layer of colourless, transparent crystal to produce a smooth surface. Orrefors art glass is characterized by smooth, clean lines of brilliant crystal, especially suggestive of frozen liquid. Orrefors glassware is noted for its ornamentation, which combines a simple, modern decorative style with a revival of 18th-century scrupulousness in engraving technique. Such ware includes chandeliers and several lines of hand-blown stemware.