History of glass production in the Czech Republic

History of glass production in Bohemia

Glassmaking has a deep and ancient tradition in the Czech lands. This is partly due to the favourable natural conditions, which in the beginning provided almost everything needed for glass production. Above all, however, it was the skill and diligence of the glassmakers who gave their products their excellent qualities. Entrepreneurial traders then made Czech glass a world-famous concept without exaggeration.

Today it is a common part of our lives, whether as part of buildings, lighting or dining. Originally, however, glass was a luxury material, obtained by a laborious process known as early as 3000 BC. The medieval period was the heyday of glassmaking. According to archaeological evidence, glass was produced in Bohemia from the second half of the 13th century. Glass production was concentrated in forested areas, as large quantities of fuel were needed for melting. As early as the 18th century, there are documented cases of a glassworks moving to a new location after the adjacent forests had been cleared. 

However, the local people started to produce glass in the early Middle Ages. From the 8th century onwards, the inhabitants of Bohemian and Moravian hillforts attempted to produce small jewellery and vessels. The products were relatively primitive at first, but they improved with the passage of time. Especially in the 13th century, German colonizers began to arrive in the Bohemian Kingdom, contributing their knowledge of glassmaking. Deep in the border forests, they established many new smelters, which were engaged in the production of 'patheries' - rose quartz beads. The first decorative goblets, cups, jugs and jugs appeared, but were the preserve of the wealthiest classes. During the reign of Charles IV, typical tall flute-shaped goblets decorated with stickers were made. Window glass - stained glass - was also a novelty and was intended almost exclusively for churches, chapels and palaces.

The Renaissance period brought a number of revolutionary changes to the Bohemian environment. During the reign of the Habsburgs, Bohemia opened up again to the south and west of Europe, which stimulated a lively trade and cultural exchange. The enterprising nobility encouraged the development of profitable crafts on their estates, including glassmaking. Experienced glassmakers from Saxony were invited to set up new glassworks in the border mountains, especially in the Lusatian and Jizera Mountains, in southern Bohemia, and later also in Moravia, especially in the Jeseníky Mountains. The most important role was played by the glassmaking families of Schürer, Wander, Preussler and Friedrich. They tried to imitate the work of the top Venetian glassmakers with their products, but at the same time they also continued the already established types and shapes.

The peak of Renaissance glass in Bohemia came during the reign of Emperor Rudolf II. Glass decoration by painting was perfected, but cups decorated with perfect engraving also gained popularity among the upper classes. The talented engraver Caspar Lehmann worked at the court of the monarch and laid the foundations for the later Czech tradition of glass engraving.

The Thirty Years' War dealt a severe blow to Czech glassmaking. The factories fell victim to the ravages of war or were closed due to a lack of raw materials and labour. Many skilled glassmakers died as a result of the wars or epidemics. Some had to leave the country involuntarily because of their Protestantism or convert to Catholicism. After the war ended in 1648, it took several more decades for glass production to return to its former level.

At that time, glassmaking required repeated melting, crushing and remelting of a mixture of glass sands to produce at least coarse glass with its characteristic greenish colour. Much better performance was achieved by glass furnaces with an internal grate, which spread in Bohemia during the 16th and 17th centuries, when the demand for glass increased. However, the glass furnace was still a temporary structure in the 18th century. After about half a year, the glassmakers had to let it burn out and then repair the furnace dome or demolish it completely and build a new one. In the 19th century, the number of working holes through which raw materials for glass production were fed in increased. In addition, the efficiency of the work increased with the introduction of generators that heated the furnace and allowed the glass to be melted five times a week. Industrial innovation continued to spread in the 20th century, but the production of artisanal and artistic glass still requires a high degree of manual labour and glassmaking skill.

Glass used to appear mainly in castle interiors from the beginning of the construction of this type of residence in the 16th century, both in utilitarian and artistic forms. Even the basic furnishings of stately homes required panes for windows made of flat glass. Thanks to its optical properties, glass was used in the production of luxury lighting fixtures that dominated representative interiors. Mirrors, all-glass Venetian or in wooden frames, which could be richly carved and gilded, were also common. Aristocratic society was fond of acquiring luxuriously decorated table and decorative objects made of glass. Their surfaces were decorated with enamel and cut glass, and different colours of glass were used, ranging from yellow shades to red, pink, green, blue and black. 

From the 17th century onwards, it was also common to buy and transport semi-finished glass from Brda, Posázaví and Šumava to Česká Lípa in North Bohemia and its surroundings, where it was used to make the final products. Since the Middle Ages, the traditional glassmaking areas in the Ore Mountains, the Orlické Mountains, the Lusatian Mountains, parts of the Beskydy Mountains, the Jeseníky Mountains and Šumava have been preserved. 

The owners of the manor greatly supported the development of glassmaking as it was a profitable business. The fame of Czech crystal grew rapidly as traders made longer and bolder trading expeditions beyond the borders of the Czech Kingdom. The greatest credit for this went to the entrepreneurs from the Nový Bor area. At the beginning of the 18th century, Bohemian glass became so popular in Europe that it began to displace Venetian manufacturers. Even the Venetians themselves were looking for ways to imitate 'Czech-style' products.

By the 18th century, Bohemian glass and the skill of the local glassmakers were so renowned that patents were issued abolishing their journeymen's wanderings and forbidding them to move out of Bohemia. In the early 19th century, the Czech glass industry went through a brief crisis, but this heralded the subsequent boom in the industry in the 1830s and 1840s, when mainly Czech coloured glass products were popular. Together with the development of industry, the share of industrial and utility glass, the production of glass jewellery and beads increased in the second half of the 19th century. 

Today, the glass industry is concentrated mainly in northern and north-western Bohemia. However, less demanding plants of technical types of glass can also be found in the Karlovy Vary, Plzeň and Central Bohemia regions, in the Vysočina region and in northern and southern Moravia. Another interesting feature is the production of glass fibres in the Pardubice Region.

A typical way of decorating rocks in our country is engraving and cutting glass. Czech cut and engraved glass reached its peak popularity between 1720 and 1750, when it practically dominated most of the world market for luxury drinking glass. Glass engraving became widespread in Bohemia at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries due to the popularity of such decoration at the court of Rudolf II. The sources refer to engraving and cutting under the collective name of 'cutting' and it became the basic decorative technique of Baroque glass. Engraved and cut glass was produced in abundance in Bohemia until the mid-18th century, when interest in it declined as other forms of glass decoration became popular. For example, gilding. Gilding is done on the surface of the glass by means of gold paste. Gilding was combined with other decorative techniques. Painting glass vessels was originally used to cover defects in the glass caused by imperfect manufacturing processes. For table glass, the hot-painting technique, which requires the motifs to be fixed by firing, was used exclusively. This technique was widespread in the 16th century, 

In the second half of the 18th century, the golden era of Bohemian crystal began to decline somewhat. Sales declined due to changing customer tastes, numerous wars and expensive raw materials. The Rococo style sought a taste for mischievous colour motifs, and therefore the art of glass painting developed again. Only the end of the wars in 1815 brought about changes for the better. A relaxed and homely style called Biedermeier spread from Vienna. Glassware was now no longer just the preserve of the monarchs, nobility and wealthy bourgeoisie, but was finally common among the wider classes. Biedermeier glass was characterised by new colours and imaginative shapes. Technologists came up with new technologies for colouring glass. Friedrich Egermann of Nový Bor invented a recipe for making yellow and red glaze. He also introduced a new type of glass, imitating semi-precious stones - lithyaline. In southern Bohemia, opaque black and red glass, called hyalite, was produced. These innovations gradually secured the Czech glassworks a leading position among world producers.

The period after 1850 was characterised by a whole range of artistic styles and fashions. Their common denominator was a return to the styles of the past. Thus came the second and third Rococo, Neo-Gothic, Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque. The steelworks in Bohemia and Moravia responded skilfully to changing tastes and were able to match the competition from Western Europe. Despite this, their products have maintained a high level of excellence and quality, as evidenced by numerous awards won at world exhibitions in Europe and the USA.

The First World War of 1914-1918 caused heavy losses in the glass industry. Many glassmakers were conscripted to the front, there was a shortage of raw materials, exports abroad were prevented and many glassworks had to close down. One of the few incentives for production was military orders demanding glass for war equipment.

When the "Great War" ended and the Czechoslovak Republic gained independence, it inherited more than 90% of the glass industry of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Trade contacts were restored and the glassworks in the border region returned to their position as global glass exporters. As these were mostly German-speaking areas, the Czechoslovak state sought to support the establishment of glassmaking in the Czech regions as well. The most important manifestation of this effort was the establishment of a glass school in Železný Brod in 1920. The loss of the border region in 1938 literally tore the traditional glassmaking areas apart. 

Already in 1945, a few months after the end of the war, the glass industry was nationalised. Many former glass entrepreneurs, experts and workers of German nationality were sent abroad and their factories were incorporated en masse into state-owned enterprises. Exports were unified under the Skloexport brand. Czech glassmakers gained a new reputation at the 1958 EXPO in Brussels. Since then, glass has been promoted as a characteristic export item representing Czechoslovakia both within the Eastern Bloc and in the Western world. In the field of large-scale production, fully automated production was introduced, filling the market with simple designs, while traditional manual production lost some of its competitiveness. This was one of the main reasons why the glass industry showed some stagnation in the 1980s.
The post-1989 period saw significant changes. Large state-owned enterprises were transformed into new, more or less successful companies in a wave of privatisations. Many of them managed to achieve European and even world importance.

The largest production volume today is flat glass for the construction and transport industries, followed by packaging glass for the food and chemical industries. Special technical glass, especially for precision optics or laboratory technology, has a significant share. However, the Czech Republic also continues to produce both ordinary and luxury hollow glass, decorative glass and modern lighting fixtures.

The fine art style has finally shed the restraints placed on it by the past and has begun to develop in an unprecedented range of traditional and modern artistic styles. Time favours an open exchange of experience between domestic and foreign craftsmen and artists. Many are returning to traditional handmade techniques and finding new ways of using them.