After the death of Johann Leopold Riedel in 1800, the founder of the family fortune, his sons owned glassworks at Nová Louka and Kristiánov. Thus, two family branches had been created, which competed and cooperated with each other.

The family line from Nová Louka

The new century was better entered by the glasswork in Nová Louka run by Anton Leopold Riedel (1762 - 1821), which began to devote more consistently to the production of semi-finished jewellery after 1805. Of course, this was associated not only with changing business situation, but especially with technologically resolved secret to producing clear and colored glass rods and sticks from normal sodalime glass, which was cheaper than traditional compositional glass with high lead content, and it also allowed a large-scale production in glassworks. Unfortunately, we do not know the name of a glasswork’s master who first captured this secret. Many, however, shows that it was just „someone“ from the Riedels family or their employees.

But hollow glass did not disappear from the glasswork’s offer either. Between 1805 and 1806, Riedel unsuccessfully asked the Provincial Gubernium for permission to establish a refinery within the glasswork, where he could decorate the glass – by cutting, engraving, painting and gilding. However, he did not give up the idea and in 1809, he established a refinery in Mistrovice near Nový Bor, run by his two sons. Unfortunately, they were not successful and the company went bankrupt after five years.

Fate of the glasswork in Nová Louka began to fill after 1814, when Anton Leopold Riedel rented under favorable conditions better situated and larger in capacity Zenkner’s glasswork in Antonínov from owners of Smržovka estate – Counts Desfours. After 1819, glass was melted in Nová Louka glasswork only sporadically and around 1844, the glasswork definitively ceased.

After the death of Anton Leopold Riedel in 1821, his eldest son Franz Riedel (1786 – 1844), who was not only a capable businessman, but also an excellent glass engraver and whose works are now on display in the Museum of glass and jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou, became a head of the family firm. In 1829, as a replacement for the glasswork in Nová Louka, he had founded a glasswork in Jizerka and continued to successfully run the count glasswork in Antonínov. He, like his father, had worked his way up to the most famous glass-making businessmen in the region, as he increased the family fortune. The main range of his glassworks was jewellery rods and sticks, flaconware, jewellery stones and as a complementary assortment it was glass for pressers and hollow glass.

In 1841, Riedel married his eldest daughter Anna Riedel (1819 – 1855) to his nephew and employee Josef Riedel (1816 - 1894). Due to the fact that Franz Riedel had no sons from his first marriage, it was Anna who inherited the firm after his death in 1844, and she entrusted her husband with the running of the glasswork. Thus, a story about „a glass-making king of Jizera Mountains“ as his contemporaries later called him, began to write. Between 1840 and 1850, he managed to increase the production volume in glassworks by almost 100 %. In 1849, he bought a recently built glasswork in Potočná for money from his private account, which, however, put into operation after reconstructions as late as in 50s.

The family line from Kristiánov

While the Riedels from Nová Louka were successful, those from Kristiánov were groping in the dark for a long time. The glasswork run by Karel Josef Riedel (1767 - 1843) literally survived its death in the early 19th century. There were a little orders, fuel wood and potash were expensive, relationships with the nobility in Frýdlant poor and therefore, the glasswork worked irregularly for many years or even stopped. The glass-making master rather had his son apprenticed a watchmaker than a glassmaker. Despite all of this, they managed to maintain the glasswork and later it was enlarged and modernized.

The situation started to change in the mid-twenties with a crushing arrival of jewellery. Since 1830, Karl Josef Riedel, Jr. (1803 - 1875) was running the glasswork along with his father. He was that apprenticed watchmaker, who was in charge of accounting and business. His father handed him the whole company in 1838. Riedel, Jr. was, unlike his father, the personification of the family entrepreneurship, forethought and self-assertion. Soon after taking over the glasswork, he built a potash plant and a pot making plant, and then set up a storeroom for glass pieces and a new stamp mill.

In the early forties of the 19th century, the glasswork in Kristiánov had one furnace with eight large and one small glass pots, one cooling furnace, four wood drying furnaces and three tempering furnaces. The main products of the glasswork were hollow glass tubes of various colors and diameters, of which domestic workers cut or blew beads. Important items were also pressing rods, of which full beads, chandelier hangings or jewellery stones were made. The glasswork also offered flacons of various sizes made of crystal and colored glass to its customers.

Portrait of Franz Riedel (1786 – 1844)

Oil on canvas
Collection of the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou
Photo Tomáš Hilger

Wedding goblet for Marianne Riedel, 1809

A semi-product, Nová Louka glasswork, Anton Leopold Riedel (1761 - 1821) was a glass-making master
Engraving Franz Riedel (1786 – 1844), Mistrovice
Crystal glass, blown, engraved
Franz Riedel’s present to his sister Marianne (Marie Anna) on the occasion of her marriage to Anton Johan Hübner from Mšeno of July 9th, 1809.
Permanent exhibition of the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou
Photo Tomáš Hilger

Wedding goblet for Marianne Riedel, 1809 (detail)

A semi-product, Nová Louka glasswork, Anton Leopold Riedel (1761 - 1821) was a glass-making master
Engraving Franz Riedel (1786 – 1844), Mistrovice
Permanent exhibition of the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou
Photo Tomáš Hilger

Goblet – Diana, after 1810

A semi-product and cut, Nová Louka glasswork, Anton Leopold Riedel (1761 - 1821) was a glass-making master
Engraving probably Franz Riedel (1786 – 1844), Mistrovice
Crystal glass, blown, cut, engraved – Rococo ornament, the figure of Diana, a deer and the initials FR
Permanent exhibition of the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou
Photo Tomáš Hilger

Goblet – the first glass melting in Jizerka, 1829

Firm Franz Riedel, glasswork Jizerka (Wilhelmshöhe)
Crystal glass, blown, cut, engraved
Permanent exhibition of the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou
Photo Tomáš Hilger

Goblet – the first glass melting in Jizerka, 1829

Firm Franz Riedel, glasswork Jizerka (Wilhelmshöhe)
Crystal glass, blown, cut, engraved
Permanent exhibition of the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou
Photo Tomáš Hilger

Goblet with handle – the name day gift, 1841

Firm Franz Riedel, Antonínov and Jizerka (Wilhelmshöhe) or Count Harrachov glasswork, Nový Svět
Uranium glass Annagelb, blown, cut, gold painted
Permanent exhibition of the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou
Photo Tomáš Hilger

Karl Josef Riedel, Jr. (1803 - 1875)

Photography reproduction from a period publication
Author’s archive

Glass beads, the first half of the 19th century

Cut alabaster glass
Collection of the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou
Photo Tomáš Hilger