Topic: German? Unusual souvenir Römer.

[flying free]

It's quite a strange thing.  The Bohemian industry then was  extremely localised via cottage industry / refiners etc and incredibly international!  Both.  The tonnage produced and the exports in that period was quite something.  Neuwelt produced an absolutely massive amount of glass.  The glasshouses were inextricably linked once you start reading into the orders sent out by Harrach (Neuwelt) for example.  Therefore it's interesting and important to find out who made it as well as who decorated it. 

I think it's unlikely Neuwelt were producing ready decorated pieces if I'm honest.  That would have meant anything unsold would need to be binned as not transferable for sale to another locality.  I think it's much more likely they were sent out ready made with applied coloured medallions, to be engraved locally at whatever site they were destined for.

That said, I can't remember where I read it but I think on researching a becher I own which comes from a well known Shrine in Austria.  I'm sure I read a local 'hotel' stopover place put in an order for a certain amount of bechers.  They may have been decorated at the factory( I think mine was because of the type of decoration) but they would have been specifically for that Shrine and ordered for that 'hotel'.

m

[Ekimp]

 I tend to think of hundreds of people slaving away in a large factory or workshop, chimney stacks and smoke and smog everywhere, not a tree to be seen. But the author makes it sound quite idilic in Bohemia, like something in a Disney animation

There are several landmarks along a relatively short section of the Rhein around Johannisberg and Rüdesheim, featured on many different glasses, so it’s easy to see local engravers could be kept busy engraving blanks.

Quite a few souvenirs glasses show more than one landmark or named place on the same piece, such as this jug https://glaswolf.de/ansichtenglaeser/rheinansichten/1044/ansichten-kaennchen-mit-rheinansichten-johannisberg-ehrenfels-rheinfels.-19.jh. that shows Ehrenfels, Rheinfels...and Johannisberg. I think it is very likely that there were tourist shops selling this sort of thing, or at least in the hotels.

[flying free]

I don't think it was a 'Disney' type thing. That was just a snapshot of one example I guess.
However I'm sure I remember reading a long report, perhaps done by someone who was American who was I think doing a glass trade industry recce there and in the England? I can't remember the detail now.
I'm sure I read in that report  that for example pensions were set up for their employees by one of the larger makers perhaps Neuwelt?    It read to me as some in the industry had their employees interests at heart.

My perception is that it was a massive industry there for a long time during the 18th and 19th centuries and in the early 20th century as well.  Many manufactories and makers and a huge cottage industry refining and supporting those.  There were factories making mirrors, those making chandelier drops, those specifically for window glass, and then also those producing bechers, vases etc type items. Vast suppliers of glass.

Huge trade imports into England and I believe France. People involved in the industry travelled, moved countries to work. There are reports of  Bohemian engravers here in England in the mid 19th.  It was an international industry as I read it and certainly facilitated movement of workers   I read reports here in the UK from that era where the factories talk about all their work being by 'English workers' as though that denigrates the work of their competition who may have been employing workers from Bohemia and perhaps France or imports from abroad.

Probably not bucolic I wouldn't think, but what I've read certainly reads quite differently from how I read the conditions of the Victorian mill factories in Lancashire for example (my family background). Or the glass industry reports on children in the glass industry in the Victorian era in England.
This could just be my perceptions of it though. I'm sure there were poor people who struggled to survive, there as elsewhere.

But I agree, it certainly doesn't read like the reports I read of Victorian living standards of the mass population in England at the time.

I lived abroad for most of my childhood and young adulthood.  I came back in my very late teens.  I remember vividly doing a journey by train my first week back and being quite shocked at seeing all the houses all the same, all joined together in rows one after the other lining the sides of the railway track.  Terrace housing.  I'd never seen houses like that before  

But then I've also travelled and lived in poorer countries where the houses don't look like those terraced houses, they are all detached. However along with those houses  ... many of the population actually live under corrugated metal shacks with cardboard walls on the streets instead.

It's all about perception and snapshot views isn't it?  I tend to think of the Bohemian glass industry as looking after it's workers, but I don't really have any evidence for those thoughts.  I mean, who knows what happened to a family if their main earner lost his/her sight and couldn't refine glass anymore?


Neuwelt 1750
https://www.glas-musterbuch.de/Glasfabrik-1750.267+B6YmFja1BJRD0yNjcmcHJvZHVjdElEPTE1MDU0JnBpZF9wcm9kdWN0PTI2NyZkZXRhaWw9.0.html

Harrach 1899

https://www.glas-musterbuch.de/Harrach-1899.267+B6YmFja1BJRD0yNjcmcHJvZHVjdElEPTE1MDU1JnBpZF9wcm9kdWN0PTI2NyZkZXRhaWw9.0.html

PIctures here from Josephinenhutte factory:
https://www.glas-musterbuch.de/Josephinenhuette-collection-W.119.0.html

and here
https://www.glas-musterbuch.de/Josephinenhuette-collection-N.257.0.html

[cagney]

I think m's comments are very insightful in regards to the local economies of the time. Coupled with a long tradition of independent engravers/decorators and a well established system of apprenticeship , makes perfect sense to me.

[flying free]

In the book 'The Legend Of Bohemian Glass' by Antonin Langhamer there is a picture on page 68 and 69 of the Neuwelt glasshouse (it's spread across two pages next to each other in the book as a landscape picture but unfortunately online you will have to view it as two halves) and the main house and surrounding cottage dating to pre 1827 before it burnt down.  This is similar to the portrait the author was painting in that report - 'Disney' like definitely

Scroll down to pages 68 and 69 to view it:

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Legend_of_Bohemian_Glass/UwLCa_h3hTEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=legend+of+bohemian+glass&printsec=frontcover

[flying free]

A view of the Midlands later 19th century - later than the Langhamer Harrach picture by 40 years though - but there's a big difference in working conditions/environment because of the variety of industries in the area:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Country#/media/File:Griffiths'_Guide_to_the_iron_trade_of_Great_Britain_an_elaborate_review_of_the_iron_(and)_coal_trades_for_last_year,_addresses_and_names_of_all_ironmasters,_with_a_list_of_blast_furnaces,_iron_(14761790294).jpg

https://www.alamy.com/an-engraving-depicting-a-view-of-the-black-country-around-wolverhampton-the-black-country-is-an-area-of-the-west-midlands-england-during-the-industrial-revolution-it-became-one-of-the-most-industrialised-parts-of-britain-with-coal-mines-coking-iron-foundries-glass-factories-brickworks-and-steel-mills-producing-a-high-level-of-air-pollution-dated-19th-century-image235172442.html


Again this is just my perception and a 'pen-portrait' of it at that.
Bohemia was a vast forested region with ample raw resources for making glass.  The industry was supported by rich landowners in some cases (Counts of Harrach, Count Schaffgotsche, Counts of Buquoy for example) with the land resources and monetary resources to support glass making.  In the early 19th century certainly (I don't know what the tax laws were in the 18th) the glass tax laws in England made it very difficult for glassmakers to support new ideas and new developments.  This benefited exports from Bohemia and their trade.  The Bohemian glass industry was way ahead on development of coloured glass, certainly from 1800-1850,  which then came into fashion and they took great advantage of that in their exports.

Bohemia(from my brief Wiki searches) was just under half the landmass of England in square km, and today has only just over 10% of the population of England .  Might not have been much different at the time?
So - a vast forested region, much less densely populated. Hence the 'Disney' type description of how it all worked.

Caveat - this is just my perception and I've not checked factual data on population size at the time.

[flying free]

For more reading on Bohemian glass in context of 18th century global trade there is this (possibly much MUCH better than my 'personal perceptions'   ):

Page 16 onwards:

Bohemian textiles and glass in eighteenth-century globaltrade
Leos Müller, Stockholm, Michal Wanner, Prague
Third European Congress on World and Global History,14-17 April 2011, London School of Economics

https://www.academia.edu/43451323/Bohemian_textiles_and_glass_in_eighteenth-century_global_trade

It is all about how global the Bohemian glass market was in terms of trade and exports.  Also discusses how workers moved to other places and countries.  Such an important insight into International Trade and European Trade and how it works.   And how important it is in my opinion. 

[flying free]

For reading on Glass at Josephinenhutte (brief report) in 1851 there is this report of the environment, trade and number of workers plus where they lived an worked and how they were working to compete against Bohemian makers:



Page 86 - half way down the page
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Factories_and_Workshops_Annual_Report_of/IfMlAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=bohemian+glass+trade+report+1850&pg=RA8-PA86&printsec=frontcover

[Ekimp]

Thanks for all the information. The picture in the book 'The Legend Of Bohemian Glass' doesn’t look quite as Disney as I expected from the Gutenberg report (reply 18), but does look quite pleasant.

A view of the Midlands later 19th century - later than the Langhamer Harrach picture by 40 years though - but there's a big difference in working conditions/environment because of the variety of industries in the area

The picture of the Black Country is just what I was thinking of, grim.

From my understanding, I think the variety of industry partly sums up the reason for the difference in conditions between England and Bohemia. I don’t know if that area of Bohemia could be described as industrialised at that time, probably not. But in Britain things were moving at quite a pace and it’s not just the variety but the type of industry. In the image of the Black Country, they were probably making steam engines, iron bridges, millions of bricks, heavy industry - exports for an empire. No wonder the conditions weren’t the best, and we are quite crammed in here

I’ve not had a chance to read the last two linked publications but will have a read, thanks.

[flying free]

The link I've given to the Bohemian trade in 18th century includes this:

'The manufacturing sector was an important part of the economy of the Czech Lands. A large share of the production was exported to non-Austrian markets. The Czech Lands had a surplus in its balance of trade as the imports accounted only for about a third of exports. The major export products were: linens, woollens, yarn, glass, tin, iron and paper. Among the exported agricultural products we will find: wool,grain, hops, feathers, cattle, animal fats and fish. The eighteenth-century policy of the Austriangovernment sought to make the monarchy a unified economy and to shape the trade in a more profitable way.'

That document describes and presents the glass trade and the linen trade.  As far as I read it, the glass trade was tiny in comparison to the amount of linen they were exporting 

This describes 18th century Bohemia though, not 50 years later mid 19th century Birmingham as in that engraving.