Tour Guide, Prague, Czech Republic
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Probably no country in Europe has a tradition of making glass and crystal and continues as long as the countries of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, now the Czech Republic. Glassworks were founded in the Middle Ages in the circle of mountains that form the natural boundaries of the country. The reason is simple: these border regions had an abundance of raw materials, such as sand or glass timber to produce potash. No wonder that family clans of Czech glassmakers have constituted and influenced the technological processes of manufacture of glass decisively for Europe.
The countries of the Kingdom of Bohemia invaded the European market from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with their production of drinking glasses. Medieval cuts were greenish, which is why we called this type of glass forest glass. Nowadays, it is fashionable, and replicas of the original medieval style are sold very successfully.
The beginnings of etched glass and cut are related to the imperial court of Rudolf II, Emperor of the Hapsburg dynasty which ruled from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. The emperor was a great lover of the arts, so many masons, including rock crystal, abundant in Bohemia, worked for him in Prague, the capital of the empire where he resided. And it is probably the master glassblowers who discovered the particular property of Czech glass: it was likely to be cut!
So they displayed even more effort to make a comparable glass rock crystal qualities. It was probably in 1683 as the master glassmaker Michael Müller discovered the famous Bohemian crystal. And from the early eighteenth century, the Czech traders undoubtedly conquered global markets with products made from this crystal at the expense of Italian Murano glass. At the time, it was believed that Bohemian crystal led welfare in the home, and calmed sleep. During the eighteenth century, virtually all master glassblowers in the country were making such noble thick-walled glass with a hardness and high gloss - crystal - could be cut as a gemstone. It is surprising that they have managed to preserve the secret of its manufacture, and even more surprising that it has not yet been preserved to this day! The secret is lost, it is now impossible to produce ...
However, from the early nineteenth century Bohemian crystal could no longer compete with the new glass imported from England that was much cheaper. Invented in the seventeenth century, it was only then that leaded glass invading Europe. And it is precisely this glass of English origin which is designated today as crystal: the temperature of the melt is lower, it is more likely to be cut and cut, and finally it is sparkling.
This is again in Bohemia, in the early nineteenth century, that are written the following chapters of the history of glass. The BUCQUOY originating in northern France, in fact counted among foreign noble families who had settled in the country at the time of the Thirty Years War. Supported by the Hapsburgs, they had been offered manors in South Bohemia. One of the descendants of this family, Georges Auguste François BUCQUOY, managed to develop in 1817 a type of glass entirely new, called glass hyalite: a solid glass, heavy with dark black or red colors. Its uniqueness lay in the fact that it left little glass through light rays. But the formula of manufacture was unfortunately lost with its creator. Another turning point came in the world of decorating glass when Friedrich Egermann, painter and glass technologist, discovered in North Bohemia enamel pearl and biscuit, especially yellow and red glaze. Revenue from Czech glassmakers began to reconquer the world markets in the late nineteenth century, and know how to preserve their leading position while several countries previously "virgin" develop their own production of crystal, thus increasing competition. Bohemian crystal is now more synonymous with lead crystal richly carved, and known for its extraordinary brightness due to the high quality of local glass sands.
In most Western countries, the term "crystal" is equivalent to a lead glass three characteristics rigorously defined. This is the density, the refractive index and the percentage of metal oxides including lead oxide, whose contents must be at least equal to 24%. The contribution of lead crystal gives the brilliance, luster and a specific sound instantly recognizable.
In the Czech Republic the situation is different. The crystal is in principle the refined high-quality glass: the "crystal" Moser, one of the most prestigious brands in the world, contains no lead at all! However, if we exclude the "King of Crystal" as they called Moser, virtually all the rest of the country's output corresponds to 24% lead glass (standard for crystal table) or more, and Czech called "lead crystal". The proportion of lead must be greater in the case where high ductility is required for example to create small animals crystal (49% lead).