Glassblowers Shaping a Chandelier

In a stone workshop lit by two roaring furnaces, a glassblower reaches a long rod into the fire while a swirling chandelier of amber, blue, and green glass tendrils hangs finished overhead like a captured flame. A second artisan bends over a worktable scattered with pliers, molds, and slender glass rods, shaping a rose and curling leaf from softened glass. Racks nearby hold cooling petals in violet and rose, still warm from the flame, and shelves along the walls are stacked with colored rods sorted like paint tubes. Baskets of raw cullet and jars of powdered pigment line the back wall near stacked firewood. Every piece drying on the racks started as one molten thread, pulled and twisted until it earned its place among the chandelier's tangled, glowing branches.