The History of Glass Paperweights

Hey dear community, I hope you are all doing well and you had a day that was full of interesting experiences! Today I would like to talk a little about art history and hope you are able to expand your knowledge.

You can see here pictures of different types of glass paperweights which are also small glass balls that are decorated inside with colorful ornaments and primarily have the task of weighting letters so that they remain steadfast under burdens such as by influences of wind. The origins can be traced back to the 19th century during the Epoch of the Biedermeier and there were already other methods for weighting letters and before that mainly heavy objects such as stones, metals or wood were used for this purpose and the use of colored glass in combination with different motifs has created a very own and special form of art. Similar art objects made of colored glass that were refined with ornaments already existed in ancient cultures such as ancient Egypt and who brought the paperweights as we know them today to the market was the Italian Pietro Bigaglia (1786 - 1876) who had decided to bring some specimens to Vienna in 1845 where they were presented at a fair and it should not take long until it became a huge hit and numerous artists decided to devote themselves to this art form. Bigaglia had been very enthusiastic about the art of glassmaking since childhood and his family had different shops in which works of art made of glass were sold and they taught him the most important knowledge about this topic early on. He was one of the most important people who helped to make paperweights public, but also before and during this time, some of them were already produced in other countries and it developed into a big trend at some locations and quickly the great popularity was recognized and in addition to craftsmanship, more and more factories were created that focused on the commercial market, which in turn led to the price falling more and more. Some glass factories were rebuilt to focus specifically on the production of paperweights and until industrial production it was generally still a very elaborate process to produce these objects and nowadays there are paperweights in all possible editions and popular are small motifs of animals, landscapes, abstract colors and many more.

Thanks a lot for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about art history! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.