The Original Bohemian Crystal

Glass, which has become famous all over the world and has been called Czech crystal, is obliged not just to the craft of our glass-makers for its glory, but also to the story that has guided it on its way. It was believed that the glass brings peace and coziness to houses. A look through the glass should even concentrate people’s minds. This story was leading Czech crystal on its short, but famous way around the world. The crystal has not been produced for more than 150 years.It is a shame that we are not able to make at least a similar kind of glass anymore. 

The origin, glory and decline of the Bohemian crystal.

The origin of the unique glass is tied up with the renaissance liking of antique cut stones. At the beginning of the 17^th century first Italian and German cutters ( Lehmann, Misseriono brothers and others ) came to the court of king Rudolf II. At first they used to cut into natural crystal that could be found around our country. Perhaps these craftsmen were the ones who have discovered the strange qualities of future Bohemian crystal. The glass could be cut - no doubts that it was one of its kind. This discovery forced glass factories to made glass with the qualities of natural ( called ”mountain” ) crystal. In 1683 Michael Muller, production manager in Janouskova glassworks near Vimperk, discovered chalk glass similar to the natural crystal. Few years later this so called chalk glass was being made by most of the Bohemian glass factories.

At the begging of the 18^th century Bohemian businessmen, with no exaggeration, gained control over the world’s markets. Business centers called ” Bohemian houses” were in the 12 biggest European cities, 38 European ports and outside of Europe in Baltimore, Beirut, Cairo, Mexico, New York and Smyrna. Nowadays we could say that the houses used to be the first department stores of their age. Hereby cut table glassware and sheet glass were offered as well. The sheet glass did not have the look of our contemporary one, but was sold as little targets. The pieces were called crown targets and were our great boast. A little bit less glass of an antique type together with round shaped glass (called ”bucny”) were sold, too. Most of the windows were not glazed in Bohemian crystal, but cheaper local glass was used. Despite of the price there still were e.g. little painted pieces of the original Bohemian crystal glazed into window frames. What if the story would tell the truth! It seemed that nothing could influence the boom of Bohemian crystal. Well, all the attempts to imitate original Bohemian crystal were as unsuccessful as the ones for example with Venetian glass.

Anyway at the beginning of the 19^th century the production of traditional Bohemian crystal went down, because of the discovery of brand new glass - English lead crystal. Only a few glassworks including just two old fashioned ones did not go bankrupt. The new glass could be melted at lower temperature, engraved and cut easier. Therefore its price was much lower. Although Czechs did not respond fast enough to the market demand for the lead crystal and lost great part of the market share. It was them again who gained the lost markets and reestablished the glory of hand made and hand cut Bohemian lead crystal in the second half of the 19^th century. This would be a story of different glass though.

The crystal has kept its unique appearance till these days. No other glass could and can offer same look.

The traditional Czech Crystal has not been produced for more than 150 years. Despite of that we still can find little original crystal chips or  sheets hidden in historical buildings very often near by old glass factories. Variety of small targets can be cut out of the chips and hand painted according to old painting techniques. We have been using following techniques :" lotto and schwarzllot ". Regarding the lotto technique we do not use silver coating  anymore, but a mixture of gold and platinum, which we have found as being more stable. As motives we usually use old paintings as well as very favourite family heralds.