THE ZENITH OF COLOR GLASS IN THE LATE BIEDERMEIER PERIOD 
The scope of color glass covers a wide spectrum that reaches from the translucent white “alabas- 
ter glass" to the brilliantly polished black “Hyalithfrom the yellowish green of “beryl" to “Anna- 
green," from the opaque green of “Chrysoprase” to the brilliant transparent “chrysolite,” from 
gold ruby glasses to the deep, dark copper red ones, from golden brown “topaz" to amber and 
honey yellow, from cobalt blue to emerald, saphire and turquoise all the way to the colors of the 
rare earths, of “alexandrite," “royalite," “heliolite.” 
Melted in glowing heat, cooled, decolorized and colored, opacified, devitrified - color glass was 
surrounded by an aura of mystery, like the arcana of the alchemists. 
Even before crystal clear, colorless (“decolorized”) glasses existed, others were made with yel 
low, brown and green (“Waldglas’’) colorations which resulted from natural impurities in the raw 
materials. 
“In regard to the invention of the art of coloring glass, it is probably as old as the invention of 
glassmaking itself," writes Paul Randau (Randau, 1905, p. 2). He points to glassmaking in ancient 
Egypt, the jewelry and the mosaics of the Romans, the colored glasses of the Island of Murano 
near Venice. 
Gustav E. Pazaurek goes into more detail on color glass, to which he devotes a weighty chapter 
in his famous publication on the “Glasses of the Empire and Biedermeier Period.” 
The time of the late Biedermeier period in Austria-Hungary was also the time of the exhibitions 
covering “industrial products.” They took place in Prague (1828, 1829, 1831, 1836 and Vienna 
(1835, 1839, 1845), and were complemented by regional exhibitions (Klagenfurt, 1838 and Graz, 
1841). Their catalogues and reports give a good insight into the art of color glass of that period. 
Starting with the middle of the Century, we have access to catalogues and commentaries: region 
al^ the reports of the Chamber of Commerce of the respective districts; and for larger areas to 
the catalogues and commentaries of the World Fairs held from 1851 onwards. In the following 
survey, the emphasis lies on the second quarter of the 19th Century. We can read the history of 
the development of color glass in the late Biedermeier in the objects shown in the Prague and 
Vienna expositions. At the 1828 Prague Exposition, the Count Harrach Glass Factory presented 
black fruit baskets in Hyalith, floral beakers “of red Hyalith,” a “sugar bowl shaped like a pi- 
neapple ... in ruby composition glass,” a cake plate and two fruit bowls “in ruby overlay glass,” a 
drinking glass “set with ruby glass stones.” (Prague, 1828; Catalogue, nos. 695, 696, 699, 700, 701, 
703; pp. 20, 21). A wide variety of glasses “of Hyalith” were also shown by the Count von Buquoy 
factory in Silberberg (Prague, 1828; Catalogue, p. 22). The exhibits of Franz Ant. Zahn, Steinschö 
nau, included “bone white,” dark blue, sky blue and black glasses, “agatized” and “briliianted” ob 
jects (Prague, 1828; Catalogue, p. 24). 
The enormous wealth of color was even more apparent in the exhibits shown at the Exhibition of 
“Bohemian Industrial Products" in Prague in 1829. Besides the “agatized” glasses with a white ap- 
pearance, the Company of Anton Kittel sei. Erben and F. Weidlick & A. Simmchen, Kreibitz, 
showed numerous alabaster vases and alabaster floral beakers (Prague, 1829; Record, 1831, p. 
9). 
The “producer of composition glass” (imitation gemstone glass), Karl Joseph Zenker, Joachims 
thal, presented “garnet colored” and “rose-red cut beads” (Prague, 1829; Record, 1831, p. 9); Jo 
hann Klimt, Falkenau, was represented with “agatized glass vases,” two beakers of “alabaster- 
glass, overlayed with black Hyalith and briliianted” (Prague, 1829; Record, 1831, p. 13); Franz Rie 
del, Antoniwald, showed “a box with cut glass stones in different sizes and colors” and a “pyramid 
of black basalt-like glass” (Prague, 1829; Record, 1831, pp. 15, 34). It is almost impossible to ima- 
gine the Prague exhibitions without the Hyalith glasses from Buquoy, usually decorated with gilt 
(Prague, 1829; Record, p. 77). Detailed commentaries on the color glasses from the Harrach fac 
tory are found in the record of the 1829 Prague exhibition: “In addition to crystal glasses, this fac 
tory supplies a number of articles in colored glasses, chrisolite=amethyst colored, opal-like, etc. - 
then, as a new product, also plate glass of unusual beauty and purity. - Very successful objects 
were also submitted even in Hyalith and Lithyalin . . .” (Prague, 1829; Record, 1831, pp. 46, 47). 
There is also mention of “bone glass” and “agatized Urne glass" from Anton Kittel’s Erben 
(Prague, 1829; Record, 1831, p. 48) and talk of “vases of agatized lime glass” and two beakers “of 
very white bone glass overlaid with black glass and cut” from Johann Klimt’s Falkenau Company 
(Prague, 1829; Record, 1831, p. 48). linder the special heading, “Hyalith,” Franz Riedl [sic! recte: 
Riedel], Antoniwald - “a pyramid of black basalt-like glass, a showpiece of mat-cut Hyalith” is 
listed (Prague, 1829; Record, 1831, p. 49), but the well known products of Buquoy in Silberberg, 
especially, are named: “This factory is the first, and so far almost the only one to concern itself 
with the production of the black opaque glass that goes under the name, Hyalith. For several 
years it has also made products of colored Hyalith.” One spoke very highly of the “lively black co 
lor” (Prague, 1829; Record, 1831, pp. 49, 50). The so-called “glass compositions” offered a rieh 
field for color glass; special mention is made here of the “most diverse and liveliest colors” from 
253