Blue Persian with Red Lip Wrap

To create this work’s distinctive undulations, Dale Chihuly blew a bubble of hot glass into a mold to create vertical ribs and then removed the mold to twist the glass, expanding it. He created the narrow horizontal bands of color by layering strips of differently colored molten glass, which he similarly stretched and thinned as he formed the shape. Such techniques have ancient roots, appearing in glass from the Roman Empire, medieval Islamic bottles, and Venetian beakers.