PREFACE
“Full of good cheer, his meager rucksack holding a number of hard
earned coins saved from his wages as a journeyman, a young man
walked into Vienna arount 1818 with the intention and with the conviction
of being able to make his 'fortune' here.”
This is how Ludwig Lobmeyr (1829 -1917) begins his autobiography,
which has been preserved in manuscript form by the Company. The
Viennese glass industrialist, for whom glass was “more beautifui than
rock crystal,” was encouraged to write down this record towards the
end of the 19th Century by his friend Friedrich Recht. In it he teils
about the life of his father Josef Lobmeyr, the opening of a glass business,
his own childhood and youth and above all about the fate of the
famous Company, J. & L. Lobmeyr, in the second half of the 19th Century.
It also takes up the difficulties with the Slavonic glass works and the
resulting prolonged court case against his Hungarian partner Hondl.
Travels take up a lot of space, many made in connection with visiting
and taking part in exhibitions. Lobmeyr describes in detail the close
contacts with the Austrian Museum for Art and Industry (founded in
1864), its director Rudolf von Eitelberger and the leading Viennese
artists. Important Personalities in Vienna’s cuitural life gathered for
“social evenings” at the Lobmeyr's. And Lobmeyr also deals with persona!
situations; his relationships with women and friends and his
numerous visits to health spas. He also mentions his picture Collection
and his acquaintance with famous painters of the time, among
them, Alt, Pettenkofen, Spitzweg and Munkäczy.
This publication contains the transcription of this document written in
a foreign hand, in its full length even though readers might consider
some passages tedious and dispensable. It seemed to me inadvisable
to alter this total view Ludwig Lobmeyr presented of his life
and work by making arbitrary changes. The wonderfu! task feil to me
to accompany this journey through more than a half Century with illustrations
taken from the rieh treasures in the company’s museum and
the archives of the J. & L. Lobmeyr Company in Vienna. In addition to
glass objects, working drawings and paper patterns there are also
Contemporary photographs reproduced here. They give us the
unique possibility to see entire drinking and dessert Services and also
extensive glass series.
I see the time when Josef Lobmeyr led the Company (from 1823 until
his death in 1855) as a very important phase. Ludwig Lobmeyr describes
this period which he knew from stories told to him and from his
own experiences. It also appears to me to be so important because
the drawings in the Company archives from this time spread out a panorama
of Biedermeier glass before us unlike anything ever seen betöre.
Josef Lobmeyr was a widely traveled and capable businessman.
Without doubt, he was one of the people who knew the Contemporary
glass industry best and was able to show his public an extensive selection
of glasses very soon, as the two surviving business cards from
the early period prove.
Orders based on samples that took the form of existing glasses or paper
patterns, chiefly went to the centers of the Bohemian glass industry.
In the beginning Lobmeyr was dependent on what they had to öfter,
but he probably developed his own ideas at a very early stage.
They led to a remarkable seiection that included all the successful
glasses whatever their origins. The extensiveness of this seiection
demanded a well thought-out System of Classification for the various
types of shapes and Services. Faced with the long, narrow folders of
drawings and patterns for drinking glasses and dessert Services and
the types of shapes of various glasses, we discover a previously unsuspected
variety which makes it possible - in many respects - to
gain a new view of Biedermeier glass.
Included in this are the production drawings of previously unknown
dessert Services, dated with the year 1835 and signed by Josef Lobmeyr.
Another important find is made up of production drawings by
J. C. Bauer. They have survived partially in the form of paper patterns,
and partially as fragmented drawings on the backs of paper patterns
that were re-used and cut up for new purposes. The drinking and dessert
Services from the time of Josef Lobmeyr are exceptionally valuable
for scholarly research. A series of letters and numbers label the
Services for identification. After his death these were encorporated
into a new System of numbering, Düring this process many of the
older Services were naturally disregarded. This resulted in the erroneous
opinion that the (more recent) numbering was complete and included
all the Services made by the Lobmeyr Company during that
time.
The autobiography itself is introduced by a commentary by Friedrich
Pecht, who contributes greatly to defining Ludwig Lobmeyr's personality.
If it appears that the volume of pictures illustrating the Contemporary
Lobmeyr text is very extensive, one must keep in mind that this
is still only a small area in the overall production of “Lobmeyr Glass.”
The company’s 175th anniversary was celebrated in 1998 in Vienna
as the “Lobmeyr Year” with numerous activities: changing exhibitions
in the company’s own museum were devoted to specific themes (Customers
of the Lobmeyr Company, wine glasses, mirrored designs and
production). In a jubilee publication of its own (“Lobmeyr 1823 -
Bright Glass, Ciear Light”) members of the Rath family in 1998 portrayed
the Company history of the House of Lobmeyr, expanding on
the Lobmeyr monograph by Robert Schmidt which appeared in 1925.
It brings the story up to the present and also includes the production
of chandeliers.
The Austrian Postal Savings Bank devoted its 1998 summer exhibition
to the Lobmeyr theme, “Surpassing the Beauty of Rock Cristal”
for which I undertook the scholarly supervision. This publication is
also to be regarded as being connected with this exhibition. At present
the project, “J. & L. Lobmeyr, Glasses and Production Drawings”
is being carried out with the Support of the Austrian Science Fund,
Vienna (project director: Waltraud Neuwirth, scientific research: Ulrike
Scholda). This is enabling the objects owned by the Austrian Museum
for Applied Arts to be researched and a comprehensive Lobmeyr
bibliography to be produced.
As with all my projects, I woüld like to.express my wärmest thanks to
all the many people and institutions who have helped and supported
me:
- Harald, Peter und Stefan Rath, along with all the other members of
the Rath family and all the participating members of the J. & L. Lobmeyr
Company
- Monika Wenzl-Bachmayer (Austrian Postal Savings Bank) and her
staff
- Olga Kronsteiner for her meticulous work compiling the index
- Fritz Kaltenbrunner for yet another of his remarkably exact jobs of
proof reading
- Bernhard A. Böhler for his excellent work
- Joschko A. Buxbaum and Alfons Pessl for their enormous efforts
-Ann Dubsky whose many years of working with the subject of glass
guaranteed excellent quality in the translation into English
- Ulrike Scholda for numerous valuable pointers
- Vera Varga (Kunstgewerbemuseum Budapest)
- Walter Haschke (Technical Museum Vienna)
- the library of the Kammer der gewerblichen Wirtschaft, Vienna, and
its staff
- the Vienna Municipal and Provincial Archives and their staff
- and everyone who has stood alongside me with advice and assistance
for so many years.
Vienna, January 1999 Waltraud Neuwirth
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