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Following the footsteps of the famous glassmaking families: The Wanders

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Following the footsteps of the famous glassmaking families: The Wanders

Petr Nový - 7. 11. 13:10

The fifth and final part – From a trade with Turnov stones to a hereditary knighthood
In the 16th century, the Wanders developed among the most important glassmaking families of the Renaissance Bohemia. The fates of the offspring of this family branch show a remarkable journey leading from glassmaking masters and glass painters of the 16th and 17th century to high posts in the government of the Habsburg monarchy in the late 18th and the first half of the 19th century. The final fifth part is devoted to various activities of members of the family from the early 18th to the end of the 19th century.

Traders with “Turnov stones”

After selling the glasswork in Huť, Georg Franz Wander (1681 - 1749) had left to Turnov, where he bought a house and set up a wine tavern. He left behind five children, a daughter and four sons. The eldest son Anton Wander inherited his father´s house, but then he lost it and moved to Opava, where he died. The second son Franz Anton Wander became a clergyman, but at a young age – as a chaplain in Peruc near Louny – died of Tuberculosis.

Life stories of the other two sons of the wine tavern owner from Turnov are more colorful. Johann Wander, a husband of Theresie Špísová (Speissová), invented the „Czech diamonds“, according to the family tradition. If it is true, it was probably yet unknown type (or a cut perhaps?) of jewellery stones. Anywhere else than within the family tradition, however, this information has not been discovered yet. Johann Wander allegedly collaborated with Viennese jeweler Fries, he himself was working as a merchant in Vienna and then he engaged in trade in Turnov.

Even more significant figure was Albert Wilhelm Ferdinand Wander (1722 - 1780), a truly remarkable personality from the history of Turnov´s business, belonging among the most esteemed burghers at that time. Around 1742, after his military experience, he had bought a house in the city and began to trade with jewellery stones. He also supplied other decorations for the army and soon achieved a considerable fortune.

Later he founded, along with burghers Josef Vorel, Jan Špís (Spiess) and Václav Svoboda-Sobotecký, a trading company, which operated warehouses in Nuremberg, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Milan, Venice and Rome. The company prospered very well until 1767, when Svoboda-Sobotecký, a representative of the company in Milan at that time, had stolen the cash register and goods and fled to Turkey. Wander had to compensate the shareholders from his own pocket, the company ceased and he almost lost all of his property. He had sold his house in Turnov to his brother Johann and went to Prague for business. Even here, however, fortune did not favor him, so he returned to Turnov in 1769. From there, he had headed to the Empress Maria Theresa to Vienna, where he asked for a job – and was successful. First he got twenty goldens and in 1770 he started working at the regional office in Mladá Boleslav. He ended his days as an office clerk.

The Wanders von Grünwald – The Knights

Since 1754, Wilhelm Ferdinand Wander was married to Theresia d’Haud from Vysoké nad Jizerou. They had six children, two sons and four daughters (between the years 1755 – 1768). The younger Albert Kaspar Wander (1761-1790) died as a chaplain in Ondřejov, the older Josef Leopold Wander (1759 - 1822) achieved, thanks to his successful career as an office clerk, a hereditary knighthood title – as the first one of the family. In 1778, two years before his father’s death, he became a trainee at the regional office in Mladá Boleslav. After four years he was promoted to the post of the first office clerk and in 1786, he published a work „Physikalische Beschreibung des Bunzlauer Kreises in Böhmen“. It is interesting that he, as an author, chose the name „Joseph Leopold Wander von Grünwald“, which is the predicate unused for two generations.

Wander´s work attracted a famous topographer and statistician Josef Rytíř von Riegger, who invited him to collaborate on his projects. Also at his suggestion, Wander was named an actuary for I&R Headquarters of roads building in 1792 and transferred to Prague. In 1807, Emperor Franz I. appointed him the head of the office. New director was successful – during fifteen years, the road network in Bohemia expanded from 97 ¼ miles to 306 ½ miles. Therefore the emperor rewarded the hardworking office clerk financially as well as by medals of honor, in 1815, he was appointed an I&R administrator and finally - on November 26th 1818 – he was promoted to the hereditary knighthood. He was awarded by a coat of arms and a predicate of his ancestors. Since then, the title „Joseph Wander, Ritter von Grünwald“ belonged to him. The privilege, a part of the collection of the museum in Jablonec, is now deposited in the State County Archive in Jablonec nad Nisou.

A wife of Josef Leopold Wander (Josef Wander von Grünwald) was Anna Posseltová from Pravotín since 1785, whom he married in Zákupy near Česká Lípa. They had five children, a daughter and four sons. The first two went in the footsteps of their father and became senior officials.

The eldest son Josef Wander von Grünwald (1786 - 1844) studied law in Prague and Vienna, then worked as an articled clerk at the Prague Gubernium and an official for I&R Conference and State Council in the capital of the monarchy. He finished his career as a director of the registry and protocol of this institution. He was not married until 1834. The lucky one was Rosa Massieurová (1814 - 1864), a daughter of a Viennese burgher and homeowner. They had three children: Josef Wander von Grünwald (1835 - after 1910), a managing director of I&R Minister´s support office, died unmarried in Vienna, a daughter Rosa (*1837 - after 1910) married a certain Hörring and Anna (1841 - 1889) spent her last days in Romania.

The second son Franz Wander von Grünwald (after 1786 - around 1855) held the post of a real courtly clerk for I&R Commercial Courtly Commission at the I&R General Courtly Chamber in Vienna. When he died in Trieste, he had the title I&R Gubernial Administrator and Knight´s Cross of the Order of the Emperor Franz Joseph I. His daughter Josefina married an Italian painter Antonio Zona (1814 Mira near Venice – 1892 Rome). His historicizing works can still be found in the offer of European auction houses.

The third of the sons Leopold Wander von Grünwald M.D. (1791 - 1845) worked as an assistant at the general medicine clinic in Prague since 1820, twenty-one years later, he was appointed a dean of the Medical Faculty of Charles - Ferdinand University in Prague. A tomb at the western wall in Olšany cemeteries (II., 8th section) in Prague, under which he rests along with his father, is decorated with the family coat of arms. He had ten children with his wife Josefina, nee Gollerová from Stod near Plzeň, but only five of them survived to older age. Even so, a daughter Anna, a singer of Prague Estates Theatre, was only nineteen when she died. Another daughter Karolina (1832 – after 1910) lived in Innsbruck, Wilhelmina (†1864) in Tábor. His son Josef worked as a language teacher (died in Příbram in 1874) and Leopold, an I&R lieutenant of the Austrian Army, died in 1859 in Italy.

The last male descendant of the family Ignaz Wander von Grünwald (1794 - 1824) also served in the military, in 1811, as a retired I&R lieutenant, he was given to manage a tobacco warehouse in Litoměřice, but he died in Prague. He had three children with Anna Körbelová. Friedrich died at an early age, Josef (1817 - 1845), an I&R articled clerk and poet using a pseudonym Theodor von Grünwald, died in Trieste and Karoline (1823 - 1903) married an I&R chief postal inspector Johann Ehrlich in Prague.

Goblet – the coat of arms of the Wanders von Grünwald, around 1818

Northern Bohemia, probably Jablonec region
Crystal glass, blown, cut and engraved – the coat of arms and text FAMILIGEN WAPPEN DEREN WANNDNER VON GRÜNENWALDT (Ancestral symbol of those Wanders from Grünwald)
Part of the fixed exposition of Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou
Photo Tomáš Hilger