GLASSWORKS
GOTHIC, RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE
ROCOCO AND CLASSICISM
ROMANITICISM AND HISTORICISM
ART NOUVEAU
GLASSWORKS
Glass can be found in
Bohemia in solitary cases as early as primeval time.
Glass beads imitating pearls were imported at the
time of the Unetice Culture (about 1500 BC) probably
from Egypt. However, the Celts living in Bohemia
could produce glass themselves, which is testified to
by the finds of melting pots and pans. Also the glass
beads in the jewels of Great Moravia, dating from the
9th century, ate at least partly of
domestic origin. In Nitra the foundations of a glass
furnace from that time with fragments of black glass
were discovered.
Glass could have been
produced in Bohemia probably further centuries before,
although the centers of advanced crafts were
destroyed after the fall of the Great Moravia Realm.
Many craftsmen left for Bohemia, although direct
proof of the existence of glassworks is not available.
However, archaeological
finds and solitary mentions in written documents show
that local production did exist, though on a minor
scale (stained glass).
The oldest glassworks in
Bohemia and Moravia can be proved archaeologically
only in the second half of the 13th
century and by written documents only at the
beginning of the 14th century. Initially
the glassworks originated in forests, outside
settlements; therefore, they escaped obviously the
attention of those who could write. Before the origin
of towns the early medieval writings did not deal
with such trifles as handicraft production. However,
even the period immediately following the origin of
guilds does not furnish much information about
glassworks, because glassmaking had never belonged to
urban crafts. In the pre-Hussite times 20 glassmakers
and glaziers are mentioned among the citizens of
Prague and 14 in Brno, but in either case it was
obviously merely an incorrect denomination of the
character of their craft. There were no major forests
in the environs of either Prague of Brno and it is
improbable, therefore, that any major glassworks
could operate in those regions for a longer period in
the Middle Ages. The idea of regular import of wood,
e.g. along the Vltava, was not feasible, either. The
city records obviously meant the glaziers, i.e. the
craftsmen glazing windows with circular glass plates
which they bought elsewhere.
Glassworks were built in
wooded regions, as the manufacture of glass
necessitated a considerable quantity of wood, used
not only for the firing of furnaces, but also for the
production of an important raw material – potash,
obtained from its ashes. Accordingly to old documents
the manufacture of one kilogram of potash required
many dozens of kilograms of sound beech or other wood.
For this reason the woods in the environs of
glassworks were soon felled. Before the wooded
regions had been colonized, it was cheaper for the
producer to abandon the old glassworks and to build a
new one on the site provided with sufficient wood
supplies than to transport wood over major distances.
Some glassworks were like a vagrant camp: they moved
from one site to another, always after wood on the
way, to the depths of forests. This can also explain,
why the operation of medieval glassworks did not last long.
Wood supplies played a role
of importance even later. Even at the end of the 18th
century some glassworks changed their sites because
of wood shortage. Not all glassworks, however, were
so vitally dependent on the proximity of forests
which were indispensable chiefly for the works
producing glass mass as raw material, but not for the
works refining glass whose wood requirements were lower.
The differentiation among
glassworks began at the end of the 16th century, when the glassworkers in some glassworks did
not produce the whole product: a division of labor
appeared - some of the glassmakers blew the glass
product and others refined it. From this there was
but a short step to the separation of both phases of
production. An early as in the 17th
century there was in Bohemia a number of independent
household producers who bought their raw material in
glassworks to refine it and sell their products.
Initially these producers
lived in the immediate vicinity of the glassworks or
in the nearest villages. In the course of time the
glass refining concentrated in certain regions to
which glass was imported even from considerable
distance.
What we also offer
