y 
5 
x 
1 
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I 
fC 
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«a, 
& 
"i 
219 „Irisofen“ (Ofen zum Irisieren von Perlen), aus: Otto W. 
Parkert, Die Perle und ihre künstliche Erzeugung, Naunhof 
bei Leipzig 1925, Abb. 46, S. 193 
219 “Iris furnace” (furnace for iridizing beads), from: Otto W. 
Parkert, “Die Perle und ihre künstliche Erzeugung” (The 
Pearl and its Artificial Manufacture), Naunhof near Leipzig, 
1925, ill. 46, p. 193 
“Ordinary, medium and fine varieties” were sold in Strands, with a Strand of the smallest 
beads holding 100 to 150pieces, the medium sized beads 50, the large 30 to 50. The 
production of artificial pearls was supposed to have been introduced to Vienna in 1787 by 
immigrant Frenchmen. The Viennese “artificial peart manufacturers,” Joh. Keimei, Anton 
Schwefel, Ant. Birgmayer, among others, were known fortheir “very excellent” wares. In 
1822 a dozen Strands of ordinary Viennese glass wax pearls (in two types) cost 1 V2 to 2 fl., 
the medium-fine wares 5 to 7 fl., the fine wares 20 to 24 fl. (Keess 2/1823, p. 905). 
There is no doubt that the Gablonz hollow glass bead experienced a highpoint in the 
Biedermeier period. The most beautiful beads and bead necklaces of that period are now 
found in the collection of the Technical Museum in Vienna (ills. 232-243, pp. 278-286). The 
wealth of shapes, colors and decoration was inexhaustible. 
Beads with irregulär shapes were usually known under the illustrative term of craw (“Kropf”) 
bead or baroque pearl. Imitating the genuine baroque or “lumpy” pearls was achieved by 
touching the glass bead with the flame and blowing air into it at the same time; this caused the 
walls to swell out at these particular places and little raised places became visible “which 
imitate those lumpy parts”(Loysel 1818, p. 307). Craw beads, or craw pearls (with outgrowths) 
also resulted when the glass blower at the lamp touched the bead with the end of a red hot glass 
tube and pulled outwards at this place (Keess 2/1823, p. 901 also Leng 1835, p. 501). 
The art of blowing beads was taken to Gablonz by “people from Turnau who worked in 
Venice orby Venetian workers who settled in Turnau.”Endler in Gablonz was supposed to 
have learned the technique from them. The oldest known Gablonz bead blowers to become 
known were Joachim Hemrich, Anton Scheibler, Franz Wawersich, Josef Scheibler, Anton 
and Anastas Seidel, Anton Appelt, among others. 
The artistically wrought “lamp” of Diderot (Diderot 1765, PI. I-Ill) or the one belonging to 
Anton Schwefel stand apart from those instruments which were often simply made of 
primitive tin cans (ill. 213, p. 264) but still managed to serve their purpose. Fed with oil or 
269