The history of imitation jewellery in Jablonec
Antiquity and the Middle Ages
The desire to decorate the body and be attractive to others has been part of human nature since the beginning of our existence. According to the latest archaeological finds, it was taken on by Neanderthals during the early Stone Age around 130 thousand years ago. What is interesting is that we can observe the desire for self-decoration down the millennia in all human cultures, independent of each other. In fact, this is one of the many traits that make humans human. Originally, animate and inanimate natural substances served this purpose (wood, bone, pearls, mother-of-pearl, rocks, minerals/precious stones, metal). The first necklaces, bracelets and earrings were created in this way, and jewellery was born. Gemstones have been among the masterpieces of the natural world since ancient times, and these soon became the jewels in the crown of ancient civilisations thanks to their outstanding aesthetic properties. People were well aware of their rarity and uniqueness, and so they always wished to be able to replace them with artificial imitations. From the very beginning, glass was the most appropriate material to make such imitations. There are to this day many theories about just how glass was discovered. The oldest glass product of this type is considered to be a pearl covered in a greenish glass layer that was discovered in Thebes in Egypt, evidently melted by accident or deliberately some 5,000 years ago. Such items, the same from the perspective of technique, were also found in Mesopotamia. They then began appearing throughout the Mediterranean, in Britain, Eastern Europe and in India. The first full-glass decorations began appearing in the “cradle of civilisation”, in the fertile crescent around the Nile, Euphrates and Tigris rivers, in the middle of the second millennium B.C. The development of metallurgy saw the arrival of new compound metals, which played a very important role in tool and decoration making. Items such as a gilded bronze clasp decorated with glass stones, for example, remained the domain of the aristocracy and the clergy for many centuries, however, these imitations of authentic jewellery gradually becoming the forerunner to the birth of imitation jewellery.
The oldest findings in Bohemia evidently testify to imports of glass beads from the Mediterranean, with glass being melted and worked with here in the hands of the Celts in the 3rd century A.D. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the glassmaking tradition remained only in the Near East and in advanced parts of Europe, mainly Spain, Northern Italy and Southern France. Glass decorations were again imported and from the 13th century onwards, under the influence of medieval Christianity, lamp-worked rosary beads were made in Šumava. The only producer of luxury glass “gemstones” at that time was the renowned Venice. Venice was mainly famed for its production of cut, lamp-worked and blown glass beads and was primarily linked to the discovery of molten glass from which a realistic imitation of the best-known gemstone of all – diamond – could be made. Venetian glassmakers therefore dominated their field and it is little wonder that much of their art-inspired glass production was known throughout the world as the Venetian style.
Turnov
The first people in Bohemia to master the secrets of Venetian glass paste were the gemstone cutters of Turnov. At first, local stone cutters were influenced by the rise in global demand for glass imitations, which they apparently imported to the town from Venice in the 1680s and cut in the style of gemstones. The cheaper imitations of gemstones became an intrinsic part of Baroque jewellery. They did not achieve the hardness of authentic stones, but were almost their equal in terms of colour and shine. The Venetian competition was very dangerous to the town that had a gemstone cutting tradition of more than one hundred years. However, Turnov defended itself by discovering glass paste, which was being melted here not later than by the beginning of the 18th century. This new discovery led to an unprecedented boom for the industry in Turnov. Indeed the quality and price eclipsed even that of Venice itself. Glass was created to imitate the majestic diamond, topaz, sapphire, emerald, amethyst and Bohemian garnet.
The cutting of glass paste developed at an unprecedented pace in the nearby surroundings, mainly in Hodkovice nad Mohelkou and in the Jizera Mountains. One major influence on the quality of the perfectly-executed imitations was the precision of the cut. At first, the basic shape of the stone was created using clay moulds and presses. Then, in the mid-18th century, Turnov burghers and brothers Václav and František Fischer invented glass that was drawn into the shape of a rod, which was subsequently pressed into shape using metal moulds secured in wooden tongs. The resulting shape was then merely cut to finish. However, the simplification of the overall production process led to overproduction and subsequent reduction of the price of finished goods. What is more, Joseph Strasser, a Parisian jeweller of Viennese origin, discovered a paste with high lead content and better light refraction index than that in the hands of the Turnov “technicians” in the year 1760. The glass “diamond” made of glass having high lead content was therefore that bit closer to the ideal. This fashion for strass was clear and the burghers of Turnov again found themselves down a blind alley. Even though this secret was also uncovered, domestic competition combined with the innovation from Paris, overproduction, wars and social unrest in the second half of the 18th century led to a collapse in the price of Turnov paste. This in turn led to a decline in the number of producers. Although the years of prosperity, when imitation stones from Turnov conquered the markets of Europe, were gone by the end of the 18th century, the foundation stone had nonetheless been laid for the imitation jewellery of Jablonec of the future.
The Jablonec area
18th century
Gemstones were first worked in the Jablonec area at the end of the 17th century, firstly in Kokonín and in Vrkoslavice. Among the first principal actors in the imitation jewellery industry in the 1730s was Johann Wenzel Hübner, burgrave of Vrkoslavice, merchant, gemstone and paste cutter. Goldsmiths from Prague and Vienna were among his main suppliers and he used several business partners to sell his goods. Imitation stone cutting moved to Rádlo and to the nearby Rychnov at the end of the 18th century. However, it was Jablonec that became the hub of trade. The last of the old, Renaissance glassworks in the Jizera Mountains closed in the middle of the century. It was then that a man arrived on the scene that was, until then, completely unknown in the Jizera Mountains. He was a member of a works master’s family that originated in Falknov in the Česká Lípa area and his name was Johann Leopold Riedel. He first took on a glassworks in Antonínov (1753) after his uncle and former employer Johann Josef Kittel, the Karlov works after works master Weber (1761) and acquired a newly-opened works at Nová louka (1766). Finally, he had Kristiánov built (in 1775). By the end of the century, the Riedels ruled works production in the Jizera Mountains and were the main actors in the future enterprise in imitation jewellery in the Jablonec area.
Whereas cutting glass imitations had become a matter of course in the Jizera Mountains, paste was demonstrably first melted in Jablonec itself in 1785. The industry was run by merchant Bernard Unger, who had gathered experience in the global glassmaking centres of Venice and in England. Although he came from a glassmaking family, he had not been trained, which considerably complicated his (eventually successful) opening of a paste works in Potočná near Tanvald. He mainly made imitation jewellery stones, chandelier trimmings and, in terms of semi-finished products, glass bars and rods for the nearby pressing and cutting shops. Both of Unger’s works unfortunately disappeared during the turbulent times of the Napoleonic Wars, but imitation jewellery production in the Jablonec area was nonetheless able to gradually grow thanks to his material base and the influence of the Riedels. In addition to the main products, meaning cut glass beads and stones, pressed and lamp-worked glass batches for metal buttons were also exported to the world. A whole host of entrepreneurs began devoting themselves to the expanding glass and imitation jewellery range in the Jablonec area. Alongside the German inhabitants, Bohemian settlers from the Zásada area began trading in glass and imitation jewellery, buying glass goods during the winter (as did their competitors from the Jablonec, Nový Bor and Kamenický Šenov areas), then refining or otherwise improving them and selling them on the domestic market and abroad.
1st half of the 19th century
The imitation jewellery boom in the Jablonec area became more important at the beginning of the 19th century, when a sales crisis in hollow glass led to a favouring of imitation jewellery. It was then that the landscape was transformed into an area of imitation jewellery. The fashion for Biedermeier and the second Rococo era was kind to glass imitation jewellery stones, which resulted in the opening of new works. The first specific-purpose buildings appeared in the Jizera Mountains, such as cutting shops, powered by water-wheels, that were used to refine glass goods and pressing shops for the production of pressed imitation jewellery. New production procedures and the inventiveness of producers had a considerable influence on the quality and ever-increasing volume of production in the first half of the 19th century. Engraved metal stamps were also introduced, metal engravers playing a massive part in their artistic and technical standard. In terms of the production of glass buttons, a method was discovered to seal metal eyelets into the body of the glass button itself, meaning the creation of whole-glass pressed and cut buttons. The range of colours of glass also increased significantly. Cheaper and less demanding-to-make potash glass began competing with the luxury and relatively more expensive glass paste. The production of metal imitation jewellery also started making its mark in the Jizera Mountains at the end of the 18th century. However, it was not until the arrival of German girdlers from the Rhineland in Jablonec after 1817 that this became more prominent. One important innovation in the production of metal imitation jewellery was the introduction of striking and cutting metal semi-finished products using a girdler’s imitation jewellery press. The main symbols of this type of imitation jewellery were the brooch and metalwork for smoking pipes. Lamp-working of glass by hand over a burner using full glass rods and shaping hollow beads by blowing glass tubes also grew in importance in the Jizera Mountains. Production in the Jizera Mountains was at that time intended mainly for European markets, but these goods also made their way overseas thanks to partner export companies. The smaller traditional merchants were replaced by export houses, through which imitation jewellery from Jablonec became known in various corners of the world thanks to fashion.
2nd half of the 19th century
The Jablonec region was transformed into a wealthy and recognised hub of imitation jewellery during the second half of the 19th century. Indeed, imitation jewellery from Jablonec became a genuine world phenomenon after 1860. The imitation jewellery industry enjoyed an unprecedented boom between 1864 and 1869, mainly thanks to "button fever”, a time at which there was unbelievable interest in buttons. The Jizera Mountains became known as the “Austrian California” and typical small ornaments made of glass and metal became known as “Jablonec goods” throughout the world from the 80s onwards. The development of new fuels, transportation, the postal service and banking all had parts to play in this. Alongside the interest shown in cut buttons and beads, interest also rose in cut seed beads (rocaille), which were particularly popular for use as clothing applique. Unfortunately, there were negatives to go with the positives, in the shape of the first problems and crises caused by fashion fluctuations and the mass introduction of new machinery. This resulted in a welcome reduction in prices, but also in an unfortunate drop in the quality of common goods caused by overproduction and in a great many workers losing their jobs. One machine, intended to cut seed beads, was created in the Venetian way by a partner in the glass and fabric corporation of Joseph Riedel, Dolní Polubný, the same being done by the Ludvig Breit company in Lučany. Indeed it was in Lučany that the biggest anti-machine revolt in the history of glass making in the region, now known as the “Lučany revolt”, took place at the beginning of the 90s. Glass imitation stones, in particular diamonds – chatons, were first cut at the beginning of the 90s as a result of machine innovation. The first machine of this type was patented by Daniel Swarovski and his partners in line with a French model. However, he put it into operation not in Jablonec, but in Wattens, Austria.
A range of new materials was introduced to the production of imitation jewellery, such as calc-sinter (glass-porcelain sinter), and new plastics, in particular celluloid, were also good to use. Metal imitation jewellery joined glass imitation jewellery, until then the dominant production range of the industry in Jablonec, at the end of the 19th century and was mainly practised by girdlers. Loosely connected to metal imitation jewellery was perhaps the most prominent innovation - jet (black) imitation jewellery, which copied the expensive English jet jewellery. Metal imitation jewellery came to account for more than 50 % of the total exports of Jablonec goods after 1890. Other original innovations also came to the fore. The production of glass bracelets (bangles) was born in the area during the 80s, initially acting as a replacement for the more expensive porcelain versions from China. Jablonec bangles became the pairing decoration of many Hindu and Muslim women and the main markets included British India. A specialised imitation jewellery school opened in Jablonec in 1880 in response to the needs of the ever-developing Jablonec imitation jewellery industry.
1st half of the 20th century
The time before WW I was none too positive for glass imitation jewellery and its numerous small-scale producers, which were forced from the market by competing factory production. The businessmen of Jablonec were also troubled by Japanese espionage surrounding the production of hollow beads and bangles. The Japanese therefore gradually came to rule the fundamental markets of British India and China. By contrast, the years before WW I were good to metal imitation jewellery, before the war stopped development as a whole. Various types of plastics were now common in the production of imitation jewellery, with wooden beads and buttons also popular.
Imitation jewellery from Jablonec enjoyed its biggest boom during the first years after WW I. This era of prosperity mainly concerned glass seed beads and imitation jewellery stones. Thousands of small and medium-sized businesses engaged in the production of imitation jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou and its surroundings. The state-promoted, purely-Czech Železný Brod area occupied a significant position after the creation of Czechoslovakia, the Jablonec region remaining in the hands of Bohemian-German entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, most of the goods from the Železný Brod area were exported to the world through Jablonec export houses. Metal imitation jewellery again found fame and became the most important sector of industry in Jablonec. Unfortunately, the short-term revival of the Jablonec boom was mercilessly, unexpectedly and rapidly torn apart by the global economic crisis. The most drastic crisis in the imitation jewellery industry came between 1930 and 1932, when unemployment soon reached a catastrophic 80 % and exports fell by a colossal 60 %. The situation began to stabilise in 1934 and 1935, although the crisis in glass imitation jewellery continued until WW II, the exception being the button industry. Button producers shook off the hard times relatively quickly, with metal imitation jewellery makers not far behind.
Then, in October 1938, the Jablonec and Tanvald areas became part of Nazi Germany, which many Bohemian-German producers and entrepreneurs welcomed with open arms. Aryanised Jewish property passed to the German authorities and eventually to the ownership of Germans and those most devoted to Nazism. Such property included Jewish imitation jewellery companies. By contrast, what German businessmen did not welcome was the boycott of goods from Jablonec in the USA, Canada and Great Britain and the departure of Czech entrepreneurs inland. Many of them, including Jews, settled in the Turnov and Železný Brod areas, which became part of the Bohemian and Moravian Protectorate in the spring of 1939. Not long after, after thirty years of peace, conflict again broke out in the shape of WW II. Many imitation jewellery businesses, if they wanted to survive, had to switch to military production. Others closed down. The Red Army eventually arrived to liberate the Jablonec, Tanvald and Železný Brod areas after Germany had been defeated. Presidential decrees nationalised almost all production and export companies in the Jizera Mountains, the original owners being replaced by new national administrators, while Bohemian Germans, who owned most of the enterprises in the Jizera Mountains, were displaced. The process of nationalising the imitation jewellery industry culminated following the Communist revolution in 1948.
2nd half of the 20th century and the present
Everything associated with the production of imitation jewellery, meaning the glassworks of the Jizera Mountains, paste works, production and export companies, became part of the new national enterprises. Imitation jewellery and glass were united under the umbrella of Skloexport, a foreign trade enterprise, from which the Jablonex joint stock company was detached to specialise in exporting imitation jewellery. Glass and metal imitation jewellery from Jablonec withered and industry in the area lost a number of German experts. Only heavy industry was supported by the state and all traditional western markets were lost. The situation improved in the mid-1950s, when relations in domestic and international politics stabilised. New markets in the socialist bloc and in the developing countries of Africa and Asia arrived with the Soviet Union. Economic production units were created at the end of the 1950s as umbrella organisations for several national enterprises at a time. The 60s were genuinely good, with many plants being modernised and many new ones built, the Jablonec imitation jewellery industry returning to its position as a renowned manufacturer and re-establishing its traditional reputation. The first national imitation jewellery fair was held in Jablonec in 1959, the forerunner to the great international glass and imitation jewellery fairs of 1961 to 1987. It was again metal imitation jewellery that accounted for the lion’s share of production. The fall of the iron curtain radically changed social systems in Czechoslovakia. There followed a period of major privatisation, with the state enterprises moving into private hands. The principal producers and sellers of imitation jewellery during the 1990s were Preciosa, Ornela, Bižuterie Česká mincovna, Železnobrodské sklo, and Jablonex. A number of smaller companies were established, some of which continue to do well on the home and foreign markets to this day. Several dozen of them are active in the Jablonec area even now, among them a few that work with prominent fashion labels. The Czech Republic, and the Jablonec area in particular, is still one of the biggest producers of glass semi-finished products, such as imitation jewellery stones, beads and seed beads, with Preciosa Ornela actually being the largest producer of glass seed beads in the world. Imitation jewellery from Jablonec remains a symbol of quality and many years of tradition. Artistic skills and technological accomplishment mean that even today it can compete with its biggest imitation jewellery rivals on the global market.
