Technisches Museum Wien

The Technisches Museum Wien has one of the most beautiful Biedermeier glass collections in the world. Until now, little notice has been taken of its pressed glass items. And this in spite of the fact that early pressed glass radiates a charm of its own and is definitely more than just an imitation of cut glass. All pieces are part of the so-called Fabriksprodukten-Kabinett, a collection of arts and crafts objects. Founded by Emperor Franz I in 1807, this collection was transferred to the Technisches Museum Wien in 1912.

The approximately 70 items on exhibit illustrate the whole range of the early manufacture of pressed glass: mould-pressed and mould-blown products, the first 'lacy' pattern glasses from the 1830s, and plain elegant forms from the 1850s. The objects reveal the variety of patterns and the taste of the times, local peculiarities, and regional relationships. The comprehensive character of this assortment of early machine-pressed glass, presented in its entirety here for the first time, makes the collection unique.

For further questions please contact Dr. Mechthild Dubbi.

What is pressed glass?

Pressed glass is always bound to a mould. In this, it differs fundamentally from hand-blown glass. The glass mass is either pressed into a mould by means of a plunger or blown into it by means of air. The mould usually has a pattern; the plunger that presses the glass against the mould is even. If the mould consists of several parts, the object reveals visible imperfections after the mould has been opened: the mould seams.

Since the 1820s, pressed glass can be mechanically manufactured with a hand-lever press. It has a dull surface and softer contours than cut glass. In the beginnings, these drawbacks were balanced out by 'grainy' patterns with extraordinary refractions of light. From 1840 on, 'fire polishing' gave pressed glass a special lustre. At the same time, patterns became less intricate.

The invention of the hand-lever press marks the beginning of the industrial mass production of glassware. The items shown here are clearly no mass products yet.

	weiter
	'Neue Welt' I - Unsere 'Ältesten'
	'Slavonisches' Abenteuer
	Zwei 'UDO's
	Noch mehr Franzosen
	Böhmen - Keine Erfolgsstory
	Zwei 'kaiserliche' Teller
	In Prag in Form geblasen
	Schneckenbecher & Co.
	'Neue Welt' II - Unsere 'Jüngsten'

e-mail
Mechthild Dubbi
	mechthild.dubbi@tmw.at

Printversion
	Print

The cradle of pressed glass: the United States in the 1820s

Who invented this technique? Obviously, two major glassworks near Boston simultaneously developed this new method of pressing glass with a hand-lever device between 1825 and 1828: the New England Glass Company in Cambridge and the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company in Sandwich. Generally, Deming Jarves in Sandwich is credited with the decisive step. It was above all his glassworks that became famous for its pressed glass products.

The specific characteristic of this early pressed glass items are the numberless small raised dots of the grainy background; they were to hide uneven spots of the glass. The special lustre of the basically dull surface results from the manifold refractions of light. The Americans call this design 'stippled background', the French speak of 'sablée', the Germans of 'Sandkorntechnik' (grains-of-sand technique). The glasses resembling delicate 'lacy' fabrics combine this technique with Renaissance patterns.

From the New World to the Old World

The pioneering work in the field of pressed glass in the United States did not pass unnoticed in Europe. In the 1830s, this new technique of hand-lever pressed glass was already practised in France. Especially the glassworks of Baccarat and St. Louis made machine-pressed glassware known and popular. France became the centre of early European pressed glass production.

French pressed glass design found imitators all over Europe; both moulds and patterns wandered across the continent. Yet no European glassworks could really come up to the technical know-how and artistic variety of French manufacture. The production of pressed glass was only a short adventure for many glassworks before they reverted to the old tradition of hand-blown and cut glass. So only comparatively few samples of early pressed glass are known from Bohemia, for example, since the local glassworks could rely on outstanding blowers and cutters.