Zeppelin
Material: Mirrored glass, painted with gelatin
Size: 13cm long
Age: ~ 1920
Origin: Germany, Lauscha
Condition:
Very nice used condition.
Glass decorations from Lauscha / Christmas tree decorations made of glass
Glass Christmas tree decorations have been around since the middle of the 19th century. Century made mainly by home workers in Thuringia. According to legend, the idea of making colored glass balls for the Christmas tree came from a poor Lauscha glassblower who could not afford the expensive walnuts and apples in 1847. He is said to have blown up glass bottles into glass decorations for the Christmas tree. This story cannot be proven! The raw material had to be obtained from a glassworks and was certainly not free. A glassblower's order book has been preserved, in which an order for six dozen "Christmas balls" in various sizes was recorded for the first time in 1848. So they weren't made for your own tree. In the early days of production, glassblowers used a harmful alloy of tin and lead to mirror the glass surfaces. From 1870 onwards, the balls got their shine from silver nitrate, which is still used in mirror production today. The publishing houses from Sonneberg took over the distribution. The mass production of this new tree decoration was made possible by the construction of a gas works in Lauscha in 1867, because only a very hot gas flame made it possible to blow large and thin-walled balls. Previously, the Bunsen burners had been operated with rapeseed oil and paraffin. Family members then dipped the mirrored balls in paint and sometimes added mica particles. In 1870, Justus von Liebig managed to coat glass bodies with a silver solution and make them shine. Around 1880, the American Frank Winfield Woolworth imported the first Christmas tree baubles into the United States. As a result, production was greatly expanded.