Friedrich Egermann

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Friedrich Egermann 1858

Friedrich Egermann (born March 5, 1777 in Schluckenau , Northern Bohemia , † January 1, 1864 in Haida ) was a German-Bohemian glass painter , glass technologist and entrepreneur .

Professional background

Friedrich Egermann, one of the most important personalities in the glass industry in Bohemia, came from the German-Bohemian glassmakers Kittel and Friedrich on his mother's side . He is a son of the same name Friedrich Egermann (died 1794), chief magistrate in Neudorf / Böhmen (Nova Ves near Chomutov ) and his wife Rosina Kittel. In 1806, at the age of 29, he married Elisabeth Schürer, daughter of the glass merchant and entrepreneur Benedikt Schürer (glassmaker) in Blottendorf ( Polevsko ) near Haida. His younger brothers were:

  • Ignaz Ritter von (since 1844) Egermann (* 1784 in Schönfeld (Krasne Pole) near Varnsdorf in the Warnsdorf district , † 1853 in Prague, buried in Haida), glass wholesaler and importer of domestic glass, mainly to Russia. Most recently landowner in Wrbitschan (Vrbitcany) near Lobositz on the Elbe.
  • Johann Wenzel Egermann (* 1788 in Schönfeld, Warnsdorf district, † 1862 in Haida), glass merchant, together with his brother Ignaz in Russia

For middle-class of the middle class , Frederick Egermann worked after a very turbulent teenage years into a recognized glass artists, technologists, facing glass businessman and respected member of the middle class upwards. For a time he was a kitchen servant, tailor, beer brewer and butcher assistant and shepherd.

He learned the glassmaking and glass painting trade from his mother's brother Rosina Kittel, the master glassworker Anton Kittel in Falkenau and was accepted into the Kreibitzer guild of “glass cutters, gilders and glass painters”. His years of traveling also took him to the important Saxon porcelain manufacturers in Gera and at Albrechtsburg Castle in Meißen as a scissors grinder and wire binder boy . Despite the strictest secrecy, he managed to get acquainted with the preparation of paints, brushes and the technique of fine porcelain painting . In his home country he then took drawing lessons from Professor Marcellus Fromm (1746–1799) in the Piarist College in Haida for two years and gradually began to establish himself as a skilled glass painter. At the age of 29 he married Elisabeth Schürer, the daughter of the glass trader and entrepreneur Benedikt Schürer from Blottendorf, and was thus able to secure himself financially.

Painting techniques

At first he dealt with finely painted decorations on milk and alabaster glass. In 1809 he had his first commercial success with the new painting technique of matting milk glass, known as agating. Certainly among the experience he was able to gain in Meissen were other painting techniques, especially the improvement of the white color to shiny mother-of-pearl enamel and the matt biscuit enamel, which was also tinted in pastel shades. He also transferred the technique of applying plastic enamel to decorating mirror frames.

Glass pickling

Since 1816 Egermann has also been involved in experiments on glass coloring in thin layers by pickling. He finally succeeded in mastering the technology of yellow silver staining and he used all the possibilities of silver staining, for example in the production of lithyalin glasses as well as by combining engraving and transparent colors. By 1820 Egermann was so successful that he obtained citizenship in Haida and was able to build an extensive glass refinery. In the same year he took over the management of the Neuhütte glassworks in the Röhrsdorf district for a period of two years as the successor to his uncle, the master glassmaker Anton Kittel .

Lithyalin glasses

A seemingly coincidental result of Egermann's experiments were stone glasses, a certain type of saturated-colored, cloudy glasses with essential non-homogeneous parts (stripes, marbling) that are similar to natural semi-precious stones (marble, jasper, agate, etc.). These glass melts were well known in most of the glassworks that produced colored glass. Egermann's contribution consists in grinding the marble glass melted products decoratively and having the yellow and red stain burned onto the ground surfaces and medallions, creating a new type of product with effective and expressive discolored, non-homogeneous parts and a surface of different colors. The product Lithyalin (from ancient Greek λίθος lithos , German 'stone' ) was named at the Vienna Technical University . In 1829 he received the imperial privilege for inventing the lithyaline glasses, and in the same year he brought lithyaline on the market on a large scale, which had a wide range of color nuances due to the different types of glass blanks and the different stains that followed. With his lithyalines Egermann achieved at various industrial exhibitions, which stimulated the competitors and especially the raw glass suppliers of Egermann to imitate.

Red stain

When interest in stone and lithyalin glasses declined after 1840, Egermann launched his unique invention - the red stain - on the market. A shard of red stain found by chance while experimenting on the muffle furnace gave the impetus. First he tried to get the red discoloration from gold (similar to the silver stain from silver). He later found the right way through the use of copper compounds. After 16 years of hard work with around 5,000 experiments, success came. He succeeded in determining the basic components, determining the correct preparation of the substances, including the complicated type of triple firing. From 1832 he began to produce the red stain industrially in his refinery in Haida. The stained raw glasses were further decorated with cut and the "slip engraving" with the motifs typical of the Biedermeier period and the second Rococo. The invention of the Lithyaline and the red stain brought Egermann high recognition. He was awarded the title of “privileged producer”, and in 1833 and 1848 he received the silver and gold medal from the “Association for the Encouragement of Industry in Bohemia”. In his refinery in Haida, he and his 200 employees refined glass products of a high level of craftsmanship, technical and aesthetic standards. In 1842 alone, around 2,000 to 2,500 quintals of glass were refined.

In the event of a break-in in his technological laboratory, his competitors were able to steal recipe books and samples and copy his specially prepared baking oven for the reduction baking process. The knowledge of the red stain gradually spread throughout Europe and also reached overseas.

legacy

After Friedrich Egermann's death on New Year's Eve 1863/64, his son Anton Ambrosius Egermann , * ..., continued to run the company until his death on November 9, 1888, and the Egermann refinery ceased operations at the end of 1888. However, the name Egermann was retained as a term used by a self-made man who made a name for himself in glass art in Bohemia and became one of the most important personalities in the glass industry in the first half of the 19th century. His invention of the red stain on glass, patented in 1828 , is still used today under the name "EGERMANN", not only in the glassmaking town of Nový Bor (Haida), but also in Germany by companies that originally came from the Haida area in 1945/1946 were resident abroad as displaced persons. Numerous pieces from his workshop have been preserved in the Waldkraiburg Glass Museum .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ beyars.com
  2. ↑ http://www.museen-in-bayern.de/inhalt/content_fs.php?type=&sub=1&objID=&objID=1070  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.museen-in-bayern.de  
personal data
SURNAME Egermann, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bohemian glass painter, glass technologist and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1777
PLACE OF BIRTH Schluckenau
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1864
Place of death Haida