Oertel crystal glass

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Joh. Oertel & Co. crystal glass

logo
legal form one-man business
founding January 31, 1869
Seat Welzheim , Germany
management Petra Schütte
Branch Glass finishing
Website www.oertelcrystal.com

Joh. Oertel & Co. Kristallglas is a family company founded in Haida in 1869 as a "glass manufacturing business considering glass refineries for export", which deals with the refinement of raw glass, especially crystal glass and lead crystal . The company's founder, Johannes Christian Oertel, registered a patent for a "process for decorating glass and porcelain objects with a pearlescent luster" as early as 1887 and for a patent for a "process for producing colored decorations on hollow glass objects", thus shaping developments in glass refinement. Joh. Oertel & Co. has been producing for the European market under the OertelCrystal brand since mid-2014 .

history

Home and displacement

Rosalynn Carter, Jimmy Carter, King Hussein I of Jordan and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Persia (from left to right) drink from Oertel crystal glasses from the Farah series.
The logos of Joh. Oertel & Co. from 1869 to 2014 from top left to bottom right.

The fourth generation family company Joh. Oertel & Co. Kristallglas was founded on January 31, 1869 in Haida , then part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy ( Austro-Hungarian monarchy). When they were expelled from their home in Northern Bohemia in 1945 , the Oertel family came to Welzheim near Stuttgart . There the company was rebuilt by Johannes Oertel and his son-in-law Rolf Neuhäuser and many former employees from Haida worked again for Joh. Oertel & Co. Kristallglas. In 1967 Maria Neuhäuser, née Oertel, took over the company after her husband's death. In 1978 she handed it over to her daughter Petra Schütte, b. Neuhäuser, who is still in charge of the family business. At the end of the 1990s, Joh. Oertel & Co. Kristallglas decided to move production back to their former home. Today Oertel has several glassworks in Bohemia. The designs are still being made at the family company's headquarters in Welzheim, near Stuttgart.

Customer base and production in a historical context

The crystal glass balls for the lighting in front of the Stuttgart state parliament were manufactured by Joh. Oertel & Co. in the 1960s.

Johannes Christian Oertel, the founder, saw himself as a pioneer in the field of glass refinement and in 1887 registered a patent for a "method for decorating glass and porcelain objects with a pearlescent luster" and in 1889 for a "method for producing colored decorations on hollow glass objects".

In 1909, after the founder's death, his son Johannes Oertel took over the company. In addition to his own designs, the designs of the Haida Glass School were also implemented. A design drawing by Johannes Oertel is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 1905, 1913 and 1922 Oertel exhibited at the world exhibitions in Liège , Ghent and Rio de Janeiro . Also at other exhibitions, such as B. in Paris (1925) and New York (1929), Oertel was represented. This is how Joh. Oertel & Co. Kristallglas became known in North and South America. Oertel developed such a sophisticated cutting technique that in 1916 at the Leipzig trade fair this cut was rated "as a fully valid replacement for the French baccarat finishes previously unrivaled." Oertel crystal glasses were also sold worldwide through Wiener Werkstätte GmbH , whereby Oertel also realized designs by well-known Wiener Werkstätte GmbH artists such as Felice Rix-Ueno , Reni Schaschl , Mathilde Flögl and Hilda Jesser . The Passau Glass Museum states "that Oertel pursued an original line that was more demanding in the artistic field than the majority of Haida refiners."

After the expulsion and a new start at the end of the Second World War , the company in Welzheim was rebuilt as quickly as possible, so that a new collection could already be offered in 1947. In 1948 Rolf Neuhäuser founded with Ludwig Breit jun. as co-partner the Cäcilienhütte in Schwäbisch Gmünd , which was acquired by Count Schaffgotsch in 1958 and renamed the Josephinenhütte. This was bought by Villeroy & Boch in 1963 .

Although the mechanical blowing of lead crystal became possible from the 1960s, Oertel stuck to the traditional production method of crystal glassware. This strategy was based, among other things, on the customers that Oertel had been supplying since the 1960s: many royal families such as Libya , Malaysia and Persia were part of the customer base. The Stuttgart State Opera was also equipped with an Oertel chandelier. The crystal balls of the park lighting in front of the Stuttgart state parliament originally come from Oertel.

Since the mid-1980s, Oertel has been working with well-known designers such as Theo Fabergé as part of the St. Petersburgh Collection (production of Fabergé eggs ), Alberto Pinto and Christian Dior . In the 1990s, the customer base increasingly shifted to the Arab region, in particular the Emirate of Dubai and the Sultanate of Oman are now customers of Joh. Oertel & Co. Kristallglas.

From April 30, 2017 to December 31, 2017, the Spiegelberg Glass Museum presented a comprehensive exhibition of works from 1869 to the present day in the “Shiny pieces” exhibition.

Products

For major customers such as heads of state, royal families, celebrities and interior designers, Oertel manufactures individually designed crystal glassware, especially drinking glasses and home accessories such as vases and the like.

The specialty of the products offered online for private customers under the OertelCrystal brand is that they are not made and refined by machine, but by hand, just like the products for the major customers mentioned above. This is why the crystal glassware from Joh. Oertel & Co. is located in the upper price segment.

Web links

literature

  • Torsten Bröhan: Modern Glass Art. From Josef Hoffmann to Wilhelm Wagenfeld. Klinkhardt & Biermann Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-7814-0313-0 , pp. 12, 148, 149, 194, 235, 234, 268, 269, 283, 290, 291, 300, 301.
  • Georg Höltl: The Bohemian Glass 1700–1950. Complete volume Art Deco, Modernism. Rotel-Tours Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-927218-68-5 , pp. 76, 77, 80-83.
  • Waltraud Neuwirth: Glass 1905–1925. Volume I: Cut glass. From Art Nouveau to Art Deco. Neuwirth publishing house. Vienna 1985, ISBN 3-900282-10-2 , pp. 28, 31, 32, 105, 137, 168, 190, 192, 251, 252, 260, 268, 270, 273, 275-277, 279-281, 286, 288.
  • Robert & Deborah Truitt: Collectible Bohemian Glass, 1880-1940. B&D Glass Verlag, 1995, ISBN 0-9668376-1-4 , pp. 96, 97.
  • Robert & Deborah Truitt: Collectible Bohemian Glass, 1915-1945. B&D Glass Verlag, 1998, ISBN 0-9668376-2-2 , pp. 2, 8, 24, 25, 31, 90, 92, 103, 119.
  • Museum Bellerive , Zurich: Glass: Historicism - Art Nouveau - Twenties. Volume II, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, 1995, ISBN 3-907065-56-5 , p. 139.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Chemisch-Technische Repertorium , Vol. 26–30, Harvard University Library Textarchiv - Internet Archive
  2. ↑ Designs for Cut Glass Decanters and Drinking Glasses, Johann Oertel & Co., Glasraffinerie. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Accession Number 67.511.53.
  3. ↑ Award of the Oertel Schliff. In: German export industry , 1916; oertelcrystal.com
  4. ^ Georg Höltl: Das Böhmische Glas 1700–1950, complete volume Art Deco, Moderne. Passau Glass Museum. Rotel-Tours Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-927218-68-5 , p. 83.
  5. ↑ Klaus Breit: The Wiesenthaler Glashütte. Memories, notes, reflections. Schwäbisch Gmünd 1999, p. 343.
  6. ↑ Historical outline of the Josephinenhütte Schwäbisch Gmünd .
  7. ↑ Living with glass. on: handelszeitung.ch , September 30, 2008.
  8. ↑ a b Exclusive quality brand for the German market. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , May 4, 2006.
  9. ↑ Highlights