Moser is a luxury glass manufacturer
based in the city Karlovy Vary, in
present day Czech Republic, a city
previously known as Karlsbad in the
north-eastern part of the region of
Bohemia, in what was then the Austro-
Hungarian Empire. The Moser company
is well known for manufacturing
stemware, decorative glassware, which
is among the most collected of the 20th
and 21st century decorative glass. From
its humble origins as a polishing and
engraving workshop, the company
developed into a lead-free glass
manufacturer lasting through for the
past 160 years.
The original company was founded in
1857 by Ludwig Moser, as a simple
glass workshop initially concentrating
on polishing and engraving blank glass
pieces, on behalf of other prestigious
glass firms of the time. The engravers
followed long established Bohemian
design themes with scenes of hunts,
stags and wooded landscapes, which
very much appealed to the indigenous
population of Bohemia. It took the
company a couple of years to begin
designing and making its own art glass
products. Ludwig Moser was able to
develop a lead-free sodium-potassium
glass, which was not only ecologically
friendlier than the lead glass employed
by all other manufacturers of the time,
but also happened to be extremely hard
and resistant, remaining until this day
the basis of the Moser products. This
fact contributed to an increased interest
in the company’s products. At the
Vienna International Exhibition of 1873
Ludwig Moser’s company was already
15 years old and not only well
established but also renowned and was
awarded a medal for merit, being also
appointed the exclusive supplier of
glass to his majesty the Emperor Franz
Joseph I. The company would continue
to obtain numerous other awards in the
coming years, including medals at the
World Exhibitions in Paris in 1879, 1889
and 1900, and the World Exhibition in
Chicago in 1893. Ludwig Moser proved
to be not only a master glass-maker but
also a very astute business-man, by
taking over a glass factory in the area
Meierhofen bei Karlsbad in 1893 as to
create, together with is two sons Gustav
and Rudolph, a huge glass-
manufacturing industry, employing
more than 400 people under the name
of Karlsbaderglasindustrie Gesellschaft
Ludwig Moser & Söhne. Moser opened
also a number of shops to sell his wares
in the affluent areas of Karlsbad and
then concentrated on the various spa
towns where the waters attracted
Europe’s aristocracy.
In 1904 Moser received a warrant to
supply the Imperial Court of the
Emperor of Austria and in 1908 the
company became supplier to the English
king Edward VII. It was around that
period when the company started using
extensively the motto “Moser, King of
Glass, Glass of Kings” as associated
with its famous royal clientele who, in
addition to Edward VII and the Austrian
Imperial Court, included Pope Pius XI,
Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of the Ottoman
Empire, the king Luís I of Portugal and
his spouse, Maria Pia of Savoy.
The city of Karlovy Vary became
occupied by Nazi Germany in 1938 after
the Munich Agreement and the Moser
family fled the country during this anti-
Semitic period. During World War II the
Moser Glass manufacture was taken
over by the invading German
government and all the workers you
were jewish were interned into
concentration camps. The glass workers
who were left were put to work for the
war effort and in a passive retaliation
they managed to create for the tank
windows flawed glass that would shatter
on impact.
After the war and because of its
international reputation, the company
was able to retain some independence
during the communist era while the rest
of the Czech glass industry was
nationalised in 1948, being one of 15
companies granted a kind of autonomy
by the Communist regime.
Ludwig Moser was one of the few
Czechoslovakian glassmakers to sign
their pieces. He realised quite early on
that an easily recognisable ‘trademark’
other than a signature could also
become quite important to customers
who wanted to show off their Moser
glass in a showy yet discrete manner.
Being inspired by the forests of
Bohemia, he achieved this by using
applied glass acorns, polychrome
enamelled oak leaves, enamelled bugs
and applied grapes. His other known
distinguishing features included raised
enamel birds. Moser was also influenced
by the European art movements of the
time and produced designs inspired by
European Baroque works, Japanese
ceramics and Islamic goldsmiths. He
also created a thick coloured glass as
well as molded clear glass with
inclusions of coloured glass. Moser
vases were often dark blue, purple and
amber and had patterns cut into them
in shallow relief. Moser created also
clear glassware with purple or green
glass carved into cameos. This deeply
carved glass had extremely precise
edges and was beautifully decorated
with flowers and figures.
Johann Hoffman was one of the early
Moser designers. He often used opaque
purple or black glass to create
everything from goblets to bookends
and particularly enjoyed the use of
animal figures or female nudes in his
masterpieces.
In the years around 1890 the Moser
glass manufacture introduced the use of
gold leaf pressed between two layers of
glass which were intricately decorated
with floral patterns and flowers This
complicated process is known as
“Zwischengoldglas” and such glass
pieces are signed with the Moser
hallmark.
In the 20th Century Moser produced a
new range of glass called Alexandrite.
This unusual glass was named after the
stone alexandrite with its most
distinctive property being that it can
change it’s colour according to different
lighting conditions. The glass appears
lilac in natural sunlight or yellow
artificial light which imitates daylight,
and smokey blue in fluorescent/halogen
light. This is due to the presence of
Neodymium oxide (Nd²O³) in the glass,
hence it is also known as neodymium
glass.
- (CB.4001)
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