The role of tin and iron in the production of Spanish copper red glass from the 19th to the 20th century

Abstract

Little is known about the materials used in the manufacture of red window glass in the 19th and the first decade of the 20th century. Here, we have studied fragments from eight Spanish glasses from the 19th and 20th centuries. The red glasses consist of a single layer of red glass on a colourless glass substrate. The chemical composition, oxidation state, nature of colourants and crystalline precipitates were determined by a selection of microanalytical techniques. In the study, we have found that the red colour of the glass is due to the presence of Cu⁰ nanoparticles, the red glass layer has lower calcium content than the substrate glasses, which we found favours copper being present in the glass predominantly in Cu⁺. They also contain tin and iron while lead, described in historical and modern documentation, was absent. Tin must have been added to the glass as a Sn²⁺ compound and acted as a reducing agent for copper. Iron is also a well-known reducing agent, but does not act as such in the red glasses studied here. However, it may have facilitated the reduction of copper to Cu⁰ by promoting its incorporation into the glass as Cu⁺ rather than Cu²⁺.