This listing is for a beautiful Art Deco style MATCHING geometric modernist decanter set in the form of a DECANTER AND 6 SHOT GLASSES. MADE IN CZECH BOHEMIA BY DESNA. I have some research notes about this company below.

This vintage high quality faceted, bevel edged, tilted CZECH BOHEMIAN decanter produced by Desna….a glassworks closely associated with Joseph Riedel ….see notes below.

I believe it to date to the 1970s / 1980s.

It is marked DESNA and there is a sticky label affixed. It is also SIGNED on the base “DESNA”. There are 6 faceted shot glasses to match also slice cut and bevelled in blue/amethyst glass

It is in overall mint condition, free of chips, breaks, or repairs and no sign of use.

It can be displayed in various positions due to the facets on the DECANTER base, as can be noted in the images provided.

Extremely decorative and sure to enhance any spot in your modernist home or drinks cabinet whereever you decide to display it.

Hard to photograph to show all the blinding facets cuts as the light catches it. VERY REFRACTIVE AND REFLECTIVE!!

Great as a gift for a special occasion …e.g. Wedding, anniversary or to keep for your own drinks cabinet or for display. It really is an eye catching set…a real centrepiece with the “WOW” factor🤩!!

MEASUREMENTS:

DECANTER: Height 8” X 8” long X 3 1/2”wide.

LIQUEUR GLASS: Height 2” x 2” wide x 1 5/8” wide

CONDITION: MINT condition with no damage, chips and no sign of use.

RESEARCH NOTES:

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Glass has been continuously produced on the Bohemian side of the Jizera Mountains for almost five centuries. It has survived all the turmoil that has befallen the region throughout these long years and it still provides a livelihood for many of the region’s inhabitants. The city of Desná, as we know it today, was formed in 1691. It now includes the

formerly separate municipalities of Potočná, Souš and Dolní Polubný, where the first chapters of glass production in the region began to be written. A glass factory founded by the entrepreneurial and well-travelled Bernard Unger operated in Potočná from 1786 to the early 1830’s. Unger also founded a glassworks in Souš, which operated briefly at the end of the 18th and dawn of the 19th century. Both glassworks primarily produced glass for jewelry. Pressed glass, glassware

and decorative glass was regularly cut and polished in Desná, however, it was not produced there for many years. One of the reasons for this was the existence of the nearby Nový Svět glassworks belonging to the Counts of Harrach, as well as the Riedel glassworks in Antonínov, Kristiánov, Nová Louka and Jizerka. It wasn’t until 1847, when textile entrepreneur Ignatz Friedrich founded a permanent glass operation in Dolní Polubný, that pressed and blown glass began to be made there. Still, it did not happen right away. Even this glassworks was intended to focus on jewelry components, which along with the textile industry began to transform this mountainous region into a showcase of the

industrial revolution.

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In 1849 Josef Riedel (1816–1894) purchased, with his own funds, the Polubný glassworks which had eight pots and one furnace heated directly by wood. Josef Riedel was also the director of his wife’s, Maria Anna Riedel, glass factories in Jizerka and in Antonínov (Riedel became sole heir of these after her death in 1855). The location of the Polubný glassworks was ideal for successfully expanding his business, because it stood on what was known as the Krkonošská Road. This road connected the Jizera Mountains to the world in late 1840’s and early 1850’s. After purchasing it, the new owner suspended work at the glassworks, fired it up again briefly in 1854, but then permanently closed it down in 1856. Two years later Josef Riedel set up his central operations in Dolní Polubný, adding a second furnace. It became such

a success that Riedel earned the nickname the “Glass King of the Jizera Mountains” from his contemporaries.

In 1860 nineteen glassmakers already worked in the glassworks, making glass rods as well as pressed glass (primarily chandelier trimmings), small bottles (flacons), and hollow glass. This production was transferred from the Antonínov glassworks, whose lease Riedel did not renew, as well as from Jizerka, which continued to make glass jewelry components. As a result, the Dolní Polubný glassworks produced 206 tons of hollow glass, 142 tons of flacons, 426 848 glass cubits (25.6 million pcs) of pressed glass, rods and tubes in 1860. The volume of production rose slightly by the next decade. In 1870 the seventeen glassmakers and their assistants produced 206 tons of hollow glass, 388 tons of flacons, and 478 578 glass cubits (28.7 million pcs) of glass rods and pressed glass in the factory’s two furnaces (then heated by wood fuel using the Siemens system). A third (1871) and a fourth furnace (1874) was added in short order at the glassworks.

The growth and importance of hollow glass production began to gather steam in the 1870’s due to a long-lasting downturn in jewelry sales, and thanks to Hugo Riedel (1848–1883), the eldest son of Glass King and director of the Polubný glassworks (starting in 1871). It was Hugo Riedel who, on May 1st, 1873 designated one of the furnaces to

produce only exclusive hollow glass and flacons, which were in great demand worldwide. He brought in experienced glass masters from the Krkonoše Mountains: both from the famous Josefina glassworks, which worked at Schreiberhau (today’s Sklarzska Poreba in Poland) in nearby Prussian Silesia, as well as Temný Důl near Maršov. The products were finished in Harrachov-Nový Svět, Kořenov, and Hermsdorf (Jerzmanowa, Poland). In 1873, Riedel also participated in the World Exhibition in Vienna, where he was awarded a gold medal for his product range, which included the latest innovation – hollow decorative glass. The Riedel glassworks sold its hollow glass through its own international sales representatives, directly to its foreign partners in Germany, Great Britain and France, or to domestic merchants from Nový Bor/Kamenický Šenov and Vienna.

Soon after 1873, Hugo Riedel added a modern chemical laboratory and a small research and development workshop with two pots to the Polubný glassworks. This is where various colored glass inventions and technological improvements, which the company had patented, were developed. In 1876, Polubný, which had been operating with four furnaces since 1874, was the first glassworks in the Bohemia to switch to the indirect burning of brown coal (with the exception of one furnace). Consequently in 1880 the Dolní Polubný glassworks produced 830 tons of hollow glass, which accounted for nearly 60% of its total production (pressed glass accounted for 460 tons and glass rods just 20 tons).

The glassworks, whose production of small bottles was transferred to the newly built factory in Dolní Maxov, was thus running at full capacity. The production of pressed perfume and spice bottles roseconsiderably – up to 1,998 tons – thanks to the new modern factory. In fact, the Jizera Mountains became a significant international manufacturing

center for these products in the 1880’s. This was a direct result of Wilhelm Riedel (1849–1929), the second son of the Glass King, who patented the technology of "using compressed air to shape hollow glass in metal molds" on September 23rd, 1879. This new method for pressing glass allowed larger pieces of functional glassware to be perfectly shaped with an imprint of the pattern found on the inner sides of the mold. The decorative pattern could then simply just be trued or polished.

When Wilhelm Riedel became the director of the Polubný glassworks after the sudden death of his brother Hugo Riedel in 1883, he began to focus not only on decorative and high-end luxury glass design, but also on the development of colored glass. At that time the company started a bronze foundry in Dolní Polubný. In addition to producing metal molds and pressing tongs for pressed glass and jewelry, the foundry also made trendy metal décor (e.g. metal stands) for decorative and highend hollow glass. In 1886 Wilhelm Riedel was also responsible for the initiative to purchase the well-known yet indebted Vinzenz Pohl glass finishing plant for exclusive glass in Nový Svět with which Riedel had

previously cooperated. A year later Riedel also set up a second glass finishing operation right in Dolní Polubný (it was managed by the former head of the Nový Svět finishing plant that belonged to the Counts of Harrach).

In 1888, the Riedel glassworks successfully participated with their Polubný products in the Viennese Jubilee Exhibition which commemorated the 40th anniversary of the reign of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I. Just one year later the Polubný finishing operation introduced glass light rosettes onto the market (covers for Edison’s light bulbs), and over the next ten years, the Riedel company became wholesalers for this commodity. (At the end of the century they were

already offering their customers a product range of approximately 10,000 covers.) While in 1890 the Dolní Polubny glassworks sent out 1,501 tons of hollow glass into the world (almost 80% of their total production), in 1896 this figure had already reached 2,328 tons (which still remained 80% of their production volume). That year hollow glass,

including lighting, comprised over 20% of total Riedel production, and thus was one of the company’s important commodities. (As a comparison: Dolní Maxov was then producing 4,299 tons of flacons.) In 1899, a second two-furnace glassworks was built in Dolní Polubný. Intended as solely a hollow glass operation, the glassworks nonetheless also

produced glass bracelets (bangles) due to large demand from India. Between 1900 and 1901 the first Polubný glassworks was expanded with a fifth and sixth furnace.

Autor of text: PhDr. Petr Nový