This essay explores glass engravings by Dutch authors Anna Roemers Visscher, Maria Tesselschade
Roemers Visscher, and Anna Maria van Schurman. I place these engravings in their rich contemporary
contexts, comparing them to other art forms that were the product of female pastime. Like
embroidery, emblems, and alba amicorum, engraved glasses combined text and image, transforming
each glass into an object that fulfilled key social and cultural functions. Above all, engraving glasses
allowed women to forge new self-representations, specifically through their use of play to question
binary oppositions and moral certainties.