Czech Glass History

Perhaps, no other country in the world can point to as long a tradition of glassmaking as the Czech Republic. Extensive regions within Bohemia and Moravia continue to remain centers of Czech glassmaking and manufacture. From the earliest days, Czech glass set the tone in European, and world glassmaking.

The oldest discovery of glass beads within the Czech Republic dates from the early bronze age, when this territory was populated by Celts who knew the technology of glassmaking and enamel. Archeological testimony confirms that glass beads were very popular in those times.

Apparently, Benedictine monasteries were engaged in the manufacture of glass as well. The range of medieval glass was surprisingly rich and includes graceful transparent glasses decorated with beads. The spectacular glass mosaic "Day of Judgment," which adorns the golden gate of St.Vitus's Cathedral in Prague, confirms the extreme delicacy and craftsmanship of medieval Czech glassmaking.

Central European (Czech) glass can be found in Corinthian excavations from the 11th and 12th centuries. These primitive glass styles spread through Italy, east to Istria and north to Germany and Holland. At that time, the production of arts and crafts ceased to be the sole preserve of monasteries. Glassworks began to be built in forests, as workers required vast quantities of wood to feed their furnaces. The darkest and most extensive forests were colonized in this hungry quest.

These glassworks produced "forest glass" of a green shade, caused by imperfect refining of raw the materials, potash and quartz sand. Potash was gleaned from the ashes of burned wood and used as a melting material instead of soda. Potash glass is typical of this Central European area. In the 16th century, glass inspired by the Venetian Renaissance was produced for German and Italian markets.

In 1588, Emperor Rudolf the 2nd invited Mr. Ottavio Miseroni to Prague, who founded the first workshop for cutting diamonds. Miseroni's shop was the main precondition for the development of a new method of decorating glass, "engraving," which involved the cutting of glass on stone or copper wheels. The most important craftsman in Prague during these times was Caspar Lehmann, who became an Imperial Court engraver. Thus Rudolf the 2nd made himself a generous patron and Prague became the center of this new glass artcraft. From Prague it radiated outward to the whole of Europe.

During the late 1600's, engraving of glass developed very quickly and two big centers arose: Jablonec and Ceska Lipa. The traditions and skills of the glass engraver have survived in these areas until the present time.

At the end of 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, the major reputation and world recognition of Czech glass was achieved. There was strong development within specialized Czech production, including the decorating of glass by painting, engraving and cutting. Czech glass of these times put to shame the previously favorite Venetian glass.

By the end of 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, English, Irish and French lead crystal began to compete with Czech glass. Lead crystal was glass with a high content of lead and very suitable for cutting, as it was softer, heavier and attained an extremely high luster. Czechs, of course, quickly embraced this new method.

Czech glassmaking held its dominance through the early 20th century and until the Nazi invasion of 1938, when world markets disappeared in the smoke and ruin of World War Two. Shortly after the end of that war, Czechoslovakia slid silently behind the Iron Curtain, not to be heard from again until the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the subsequent separation from Slovakia.

In these times of 'yesterday's news,' sixty years is more than sufficient time for the world to have forgotten the centuries of Czech domination in the glassmakers art. Bohemia and Moravia are but clouded memories in a reconfigured Europe and yet these lands make up the present day Czech Republic, where the glassmaker's tradition thrives once again.