historical roots

It was during the sixteenth century that the Jizera Mountains became the place in which glass production was successfully developed. Its major growth took place during the nineteenth century, when one of the important production centres emerged in the area around the present-day town of Desná.

In so much as Jablonex Group a.s. is the direct successor of the glass producers that established their own companies in the nineteenth century, the producer of the “Desná” range can lay claim to solid historical roots.

It was in 1847 that businessman Ignatz Friedrich built a glass factory for the production of blown glass In Dolní Polubný, where the Jablonex Group a.s. complex of glassworks can be found today. He sold it to Josef Riedel Snr. not long after, and he in turn turned the factory into the centre of his business empire. This made him famous to such an extent that he was rightfully named the glass king of the Jizera Mountains. The glass factories of Josef Riedel not only produced their own wide range of finished products, but, primarily supplied many significant refinery companies in the nearby surroundings and the whole of the Czech north with semi-finished glass products.

Among the most famous of the users of glass from the Riedel glassworks at that time, and the original creators of the “Desná” range, were companies that wrote themselves significant chapters in the history of local production: Heinrich Hoffmann and Curt Schlevogt.

The Heinrich Hoffmann Company became the most notable of the producers of artistically oriented glassware in the Jizera Mountains area during the 1920s. The company specialised primarily in the export and production of imitation precious stones, pearls, and buttons from the time of its very inception in 1867. The firm began to produce artistically formed crystalware under the influence of the Decorative Arts Exhibition that was held in Paris in 1925. This crystalware was inspired by the successful French designer and entrepreneur René Lalique. Thanks to cooperation with local artists (František Pazourek, Zdeněk Juna, and Alexander Pfohl), Hoffmann managed to build up an original range of its own, a range that was presented with awards at World Fairs and that acquitted itself well in the face of competition from foreign producers.