Zeppelin
Material: Blown mercury glass, hand painted with gelatin.
Size: 11 cm long
Age: ca. 1910
Origin: Germany, Lauscha
Condition:
Condition is good. Inside the silvering is partly matt. Paint has some wear.
Description:
Antique Christmas ornament made of mouth-blown, internally silvered glass in the shape of a Zeppelin. The moulded airship body features raised “ZEPPELIN” lettering. Hand-painted yellow and red gelatin colours accent the surface, which shimmers in shades of silver and champagne. With a metal cap, a glass loop at the opposite end and a fine hanging cord. The internal silvering has become partially dull and deteriorated with age. Wear and losses to the painted decoration, together with the aged patina, reflect the ornament’s history. Please refer to the photographs for condition and details. A distinctive collector’s piece of early figural Christmas ornament production from Lauscha. Guaranteed antique – not a reproduction.
Glass ornaments from Lauscha
This vitreous christmas tree collectible has been manufactured since the middle of the 19th century with the majority of the workers being homeworkers from Thueringen. Legend has it that the idea to use colorated spheres for the decoration of christmas trees stems from a poor glass blower from Lauscha who reportedly could not afford the expensive walnuts and apples which were usual back then. That is also why he is said to have blown up little glass bottles into glass ornaments for his christmas tree. This story has no evidence backing it up! The raw materials had to originate from a glass hut and were not cheap to say the least. Evidence of a glass blower’s order book in which you can still find the first order for 6 dozen „Christmas Ball Ornaments“ in several sizes does exist. Therefore they had not been manufactured for his personal christmas tree. In the beginnings of glass ornamentry the alloy consisted of hazardous substances like tin and lead. It was used for the mirroring of glass surfaces. Since 1870 the ornaments get their shine from silver nitrate which still gets used in mirror production. The distribution was handled by publishing houses in Sonneberg. The mass production of this new tree decoration was made possible by the construction of a gas facility in Lauscha in 1867. Just a small gas flame could facilitate blowing big and thin spheres. Before that the bunsen burners were fuelled by rubbing oil and kerosene. The vitreous spheres were then drenched in paint and sometimes also in glimmer particles by family members. 1870, it was Justus von Liebig, who was able to coat vitreous body in a silver solution and make them shine. Sometime around the year 1880, the US american Frank Winfield Woolworth imported the first christmas ornament balls into the United States. That enabled the production to prosper.
