Drinking glass design around 1670

British glass has often been valued as much for its design as for the quality of its glass 'metal' and its workmanship. It was not always that way. In the first half of the 17th century there was no distinct British style and drinking glass production was mainly limited to out-dated copies of Venetian or Dutch designs. All this changed 350 years ago with the granting of a Royal Charter to the Glass-sellers Company of London. Fortunately we know a lot about one of these founding Glass-sellers, John Greene, and his innovative glass designs from the Sloane 857 manuscripts now preserved in the British Library. This paper aims to explore how drinking glass designs evolved around 1670 by tracing one thread through Greene's designs, looking at how a style of beer glass developed to satisfy what quickly became a dynamic fashion-conscious market. This is illustrated by a surviving complete glass and excavated fragments. Of particular interest is that the recently-discovered complete glass matches a design ordered by John Greene from Venice on 10th February 1670/1. However, the glass 'metal' does not appear Venetian and there are other similar Greene drawings that do not relate to any Venetian order, so the paper considers the evidence for it being English-made. In any discussion of glass design around 1670 there is an important 'chicken and egg' question. Which came first: lead crystal glass, or the market-need for lead-crystal glass? The paper argues that the market need came first and that the technical developments to satisfy this followed. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of the Glass-sellers as designers at this critical stage in the development of the English and Irish glass industries and showing that these classic designs quickly became iconic, evoking the taverns described in Samuel Pepys' diaries.