The art of glassblowing

In the collection of the Chessmen Museum, a chess game of traditionally blown glass chess pieces shines brightly. Glassblowing has been done in the same way for centuries, but ever since the industrialisation around 1850, glass can also be mechanically pressed. In combination with a production increase, this made for an inferior mass product. For artists, mouth-blown glass is still a much loved item.

Around 50 B.C., glassblowing with a pipe was invented in Syria. It was already known that the melting of a soda, sand and lime mixture resulted in a liquid mass of glass, but now craftsmen could shape this mass using a glass-blowing pipe. The process of glassblowing has hardly changed since then. The art of glassblowing made its way to Venice via Byzantium, in the 13th century. Theories about this vary.

Glass-making techniques came to Europe either voluntarily by means of the trade network, or under coercion of belligerent Venetians. Upon the conquest of Constantinople in 1204, during the fourth crusade, prisoners of war were taken to Italy and Syrian glass-makers are said to have been among them. The Venetians protected the newly discovered secret to glassblowing very carefully, by means of laws against foreign workers. From 1291 onwards, all glassblowers were even forced to go and live on the nearby island of Murano. Execution was a likely penalty in case they left the island. All of this was in order to prevent fires and the leaking of glassblowing techniques. Some of the Venetian glassblowers took a chance and escaped. They ended up working in Northern Europe for a lot of money. This way, the art of glassblowing spread outside of Italy. During the Middle Ages, Antwerp became the glass capital of the Dutch territory.

Glass factories
Nowadays, Leerdam is considered The Netherlands´ most important glass city. This is due to the presence of the internationally renowned glass factory, which opened its doors in 1878. In this factory, mechanically pressed glass, as well as mouth-blown glass are still being produced. The factory wanted to distinguish itself by making quality glass for an affordable price and in 1915 it started cooperating with artists. They designed craft glass: artistically styled utensils that were pressed in the factory.

In addition to beautifully designed tableware and vases by well-known designers such as H.P. Berlage, the glass factory in Leerdam also made decorative glass, glass as a free art form. The first artist to experiment with this art form was Andries Copier (1901-1991). When he visited the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam around 1923, he became inspired by the exhibition of Roman and Persian glassware. He went on to make designs that resembled this ancient glassware and experimented in the execution of his projects, together with glassblower Gerrit Vroegh. These experimental designs are seen as the precursors of the Unica designs, unique edition artefacts, as opposed to serial or even mass products.

In 1925, Glass Factory Leerdam officially launched the ornamental glassware in its catalogue under the name Unica. It still contained utensils such as vases and tableware. Products such as the mouth-blown glass chess set at the Chessmen Museum were not manufactured by the factory. Just like the Unica, each chess piece of this game is one of a kind. The chess game is part of the J.M. Glotzbach collection and the chess pieces were blown by decorative glass blower De Jong during a demonstration (approximately 1978).

Wrong target audience
The Leerdam factory catalogue from 1927 states that modern people should furnish their house in the style of their day and age. There was no need to revert to antiques with all that splendid contemporary glass art. And because of the affordable prices, people from all walks of life would be able to decorate their home with artisan glass. The glass would look especially good in houses that were designed according to the mantra of that time: light, air and space.

The glass factory painted a beautiful picture, but the reality was different. Most people who could afford it nevertheless chose traditionally shaped glass or antiques instead of modern handcrafted glass tableware. As for the general public, the glassware designed by artists was too expensive. To expand their market, the factory launched a line of cheaper glassware that was inspired by the design of handmade glass in 1934. These collections were available at department stores such as V&D and De Bijenkorf. This way, nearly everyone could afford glass art.

By Marjolein Overmeer