BEADS FROM GABLONZ
Scatter and embroidery beads, rassades and rocailles, macca and Charlotte beads,
drawn and blown beads, wound and press-molded beads, silver and fine gold beads,
wax beads, baroque and craw beads, pound and string beads, spindles and spools,
bugles, glass corals, and glass garnets - the names are as numerous as the beads
themselves and their meanings and interpretations vary in turn. From the Biedermeier
period alone, there are inexhaustible varieties of Bohemian beads known to us;
whether free-formed or “squeezed,” solid or hollow blown, they show an astonishing
variety and ränge of modern and contrasting color (ill. 5, p. 21): round and faceted,
wrapped and striped beads, some with “belts” and aventurine bands, scarred and
patterned, color lined, satinized and silvered beads, in pale pastel shades, with silky
surfaces and in bright art-deco color combinations (ills. 3-5, pp. 17, 20, 21; ills. 232-
243, pp. 278-286).
The great variety of Gablonz beads is revealed to us in the most important sources of
the 19th and 20th centuries: the writings and statistics on the economy and the
geography of Bohemia, the reports and commentaries on exhibitions, the address
books, etc.
One report on this time that is representative of many others, sheds light on the
Situation of Bohemian glass bead production: a Kreutzberg report from the year 1836
dealing with “glass compositions, beads, squeezed and blown glass”. It States that
some 10,000 people were involved in this branch of production which showed a profit
of 2,000,000 florins:
“The main seat of the glass coral, rocaille and chandelier stone trade is the market town, Gablonz
The production is mostly headed by local entrepreneurs who supply the workers scattered
throughout the neighboring dominions of Morchenstern and Kleinskall with samples and materi-
als. The former are divided into: composition burners, who melt the supplied glass batches in the
most varied colors and shades, and then shape them into canes and tubes; glass and composi
tion press-molders (squeezers) who shape the soft mass into raw chandelier andjewelry stones
with molding tongs; these are then further refined by cutting, which takes place in their own grind-
ing mills, a single one of which often contains 6-15 work places, which the grinding mill owner
turns over to individual workers to use in return for a fee; bead blowers, cutters, gilders and
Stringers, of which the latter (nearly 300 in the Dominion of Morchenstern alone are mostly
children) string the finished beads onto wire and thread.”(Kreutzberg 1836, pp. 25, 26).
GABLONZ GLASS NOTIONS
The beads from Gablonz (chiefly drawn, press-molded and blown beads) were only a
part - albeit a very important one - of the later so-called “Gablonz industry,” whose
Products are also known under the term “glass notions” or “quincaillerie;” the school
founded in Gablonz in 1880 also used the terms “quincaillerie and bijouterie” in its
name. At the beginning of the 19th Century “glass notions” was frequently synonymous
with “the small art of glass making” (Loysel 1818, p.264), “small glassmaking” or
“small glass products” (Leng 1835, p. 500) which is more direct and vivid than the
expression, “glass notions,” in describing the size of the products. There are two main
sources named here that are representative of many others during the periods of
historicism and art nouveau, which describe this production known far beyond the
region’s borders.
In 1854 several Bohemian Companies took part in the “General German Industrial
Exhibition” in Munich; J. and C. Pfeiffer and H. Fischer from Gablonz, along with
A. Pazelt from Turnau showed “quincaillerie products” (including “ear drops” and
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