Brilliant cutting
Brilliant cutting is the decoration of glass with grooves cut by spinning abrasive wheels, then polished until the cuts are clear and bright. The cuts, usually in V-shaped grooves, form patterns of stars, fans, hobnails, diamonds and sunbursts that sparkle as the light moves.
The method grew from the cut glass of dinner tables and was applied to flat glass for windows and doors in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a time when it was especially fashionable in the United States and Britain. A brilliant cut panel catches the light in the same way as a bevel, but the effect comes from fine lines cut into the face of the glass and not from an angled edge.
Brilliant cut panels are often combined with bevels, etching and leaded lights in the same door.