Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: tropdevin on January 17, 2011, 07:13:53 PM
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I feel that this paperweight (http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5574631383&toolid=10001&campid=5335820906&customid=&icep_item=400187766904&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229466&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg) is probably from Silesia / Thuringia, rather than Venice. Certainly an unusual design. Any thoughts?
Alan
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It is an attractive weight but Venetian did not come to mind when I saw it. Boho came to mind first. Is that the same as your id thought? I like the colors and design. It seems a hefty asking $$$ but perhaps not out of line ... ? I don't know enough about these weights to really say.
Lily :)
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Hi Lily
'Boho' is a rather loose category. I have touched upon the complex history of central Europe in talks I have given at the PCA and at Wheaton. Here are a few key points.
At the start of paperweight times (ie 1830 onwards) Bohemia was a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire - as was Venice, and Venetian glass was sometimes called 'Bohemian'. After the First World War, Czechoslovakia was created from Bohemia and all or part of other countries including Moravia, Hungary and Silesia. So anything made in what had been the Austrian part of Silesia might be called Czechoslovakian, and some people consider such things - wrongly in my view - to be the same as Bohemian. I think Bohemia was just part of Czechoslovakia. After the break up of Czechoslovakia, Bohemia lies within the Czech Republic.
Silesia is an area mainly within Poland, with smaller parts in the Czech Republic and in Germany. Thuringia is a state within Germany, including the well known glass making town of Lauscha, and paperweights from that region are not really Bohemian!
Unfortunately, paperweights from Germany, Poland, Silesia, Bohemia and surrounding areas all tend to get labelled as 'Bohemian', which is a useful if inaccurate term!
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Thank you so very much, Alan! What you shared is very interesting and now, at least, I have a clue about the central European area(s) being referred to.
With Appreciation .... Lily :cheers: