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91 Sechseckige Röhren und daraus geschnittene Perlen („Mit der Perlen-Schneid-Maschine
geschnitt. Glasröhrchen. 1894“), 16,2 x 12,1 mm, Josef Riedel/Polaun,1894. - TMW, Inv. TM
7716/21
91 Hexagonal glass tubes and beads cut from them, 16.2 x 12.1 mm., Josef Riedel/Poiaun,
1894. - TMW, inv. TM 7716/21
144
Drawing glass tubes is a process in the art of glass blowing that was known long betöre the
existence of the first Gablonz tubes and canes for making beads. In the Riedel Glasshouse,
the first drawn beads were supposed to have been made in 1793, the first rods in 1803 and
the first “bead glasses” for making blown beads in 1815 (Tayenthal 1900, p. 34; Arnold
1909, p. 92). According to Parkert, Elias Zenkner already made hollow glass tubes in 1700.
Working them over a pointed jet flame in a very primitive way he made them into beads in a
glasshouse especially built for this purpose, using a number of outside glass workers
(Parkert 1925, pp. 135, 136). The oldest account of drawing canes known to me is the one
in the section, “Verrerie,” in the Encyclopaedia by Diderot and d’Alembert (ill.57, p. 106).
Air is blown into a glass gather, another little gather is attached to it and two workers draw
out the gather above wooden boards laid out crosswise. The tubes are divided into uniform
lengths with the help of a flint (“pierre ä fusil”) and tied into bundles. These illustrations are
taken over in a simplified version from literature on glass technology from the 19th Century.
We have descriptions of how rods were drawn, starting from the late 18th Century: the
Wenzel brothers and Franz Fischer in Turnau had “inventeda different way, namely to draw
the composition in a hot-blast furnace into canes, thick and thin, the way they were
needed..."(Schreyer 1790, p. 93).
In 1823, Keess reports on the technique used in Murano and Venice:
“A worker sticks an iron rod into the red hot glass material, rounds off the blob of glass hanging to
it on a round piece of iron and pierces a hole in it. A second worker attaches a similar glass blob
to it and both run away from each other for at least lOOpaces, whereby the glass material
shapes into perforated rods. Düring cooling the rods break off by themselves or are broken off in
pieces the length of a shoe so they can be delivered to the bead factories in Venice more com-
fortably... Colored canes for other purposes, e.g., baskets, do not get a hole"(Keess 2/1823,
pp. 899, 900).
Kreutzberg devotes a separate paragraph to "Glass compositions, beads, squeezed and
blown glass/’ it Claims that some 10,000 people worked in this branch of production which
made a profit of 2,000,000 florins.
"The main center of trade in glass corals, drawn beads and chandelier stones is the market town
of Gablonz... The production is generally run by local entrepreneurs who supply the workers
scattered throughout the neighboring dominions of Morchenstern and Kleinskall with samples
and materials. The first group is divided into composition burners who melt the glass into the vari-
ous colors and shades, and then shape them into rods and tubes”(Kreutzberg 1836, p. 26).
At the glass factory of F. Unger & Co. in Dunkelthal near Marschendorf, the first place in the
production assortment (about 1860) was held by “raw glass in rods for the fabrication of
pressed beads, buttons, stones, etc., etc.;” and “hollow glass canes for the fabrication of
various kinds of beads, etc., etc.” In Tiefenbach the Company also owned a “factory... with
glass refineries for prisms, beads, buttons, stones, bijouterie articles, etc., etc., at which
224 plain cutters, 60 hollow Cutters and 40 bead cutters and almost 500 outside workers in
the surrounding area were employed in the company’s own cutting works;...” (Anschiringer
n. d., pp. 99, 100). Special attention was given to the fact that F. Unger & Co. was the only
Company at that time “which produced, decorated and marketed every single glass article in
its own factories” (with the exception of tablewares and mirror glass).
The hollow space required for the bead Perforation was created during the drawing of the rod,
either by blowing air into it, or by pressing a metal cylinder lengthwise into the center of the
glass cylinder. In the beginning the perforations had a round cross-section, later they could
also have square, triangulär or wide (for stringing on ribbons) shapes. On a sample card from
the Company “Czechoslovak Glass Export Co. Ltd., Section Beads”in Gablonz, the type of
Perforation is indicated for every bügle (“square hole bugles, round hole bugles”). The cross-
sections of tubes and canes were also round in the beginning; the invention of square drawn
glass is placed in connection with the Tiefenbach glasshouse in 1803 (Vienna 1845, Lloyd
1845). A number of Privileges are devoted to the further development of glass canes and
tubes with corners. The polygonal walls could either be made straight or curved.
145
