THE JABLONEC BUTTON
Authors Dr. Ludmila Kybalova, Dr. Petr Novy, Sarka Siruckova
Published by Muszeum skla a bizuterie v Jablonci nad Nisou, 2007
Hardback 21cm by 24cm
192 pages 224 illustrations
Can only be ordered from the museum. Contact by e-mail alena.svobodova@msb-jablonec.cz)
Price 380 Kc (now around 19 USD, £9.50) + postal charges.
This fine book, with a print run of only 1000, is written in Czech, German and English, with the full text being given in all languages rather than the non native languages being given in summary as is so often the case.
Jablonec is an old town in Northern Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, with a long history of glass-making. Indeed although Jablonec was the leading button making city of the world between the mid 19th century and the year 2000 the authors are at pains to point out that button making was only a small part of the manufacturing production of the city, third after the production of chandelier drops and costume jewellery.
The city has a splendid Successionist building as it’s decorative arts museum that has recently been refurbished. The authors, all connected to the museum, state that the museum collection has around five million individual buttons, as well as a large collection of paste jewellery and glass.
In the first chapter Dr. Kybalona gives first a brief overview of the history and use of buttons from the Iron age to the start of the 19th century. Up to then buttons were largely a luxury item more or less hand made for the wealthy. By the 1860’s there were prosperous Czech factories making buttons for a global demand and in France “In 1877 it looked as if all ladies were smitten with a sort of button mania. They flooded their clothes, in particular the outer layer of their clothing, with a full shower of buttons: not by the dozen, but by the gross, no longer for purposeful dressing, but for exaggerated preening.” During the First World War there was a great demand for metal buttons for the military and the stamping machinery needed for this production were used for civilian production after the war. After the second world war the use of first poppers, and then zips and Velcro gave competition to buttons as a means of holding clothes together, but buttons have always also been about display. This chapter is illustrated with 19th century fashion plates in colour.
In the second, longer, chapter, Dr. Novy gives a detailed history of ‘The Jablonec Button’, full of detailed information that is not readily available elsewhere. This chapter is divided up into nine sections entitled :-
‘The beginnings of button production in the Jizera mountains,
The birth of the Jablonec glass button,
“Button Fever” in the 1806’s,
The era of sobriety and crisis – the 1870’s,
The whims of fashion – the 1880’s and 1890’s,
Searching for ways to overcome the crisis – the registration of designs, patents, and exclusive goods,
The victory of the factories - the beginning of the 20th century,
The dice are thrown – 1918-1948,
Crossing the Rubicon – the second half of the 20th century and the present.
This chapter, (with 125 end notes!), gives a most detailed account of the Czech button making industry in all materials and is accompanied by contemporary photographs.
The second half of the book, by Sarka Siruckova concerns ‘The collection of buttons at the museum’ consisting of:-
the original town collection,
the Weisskopf collection of glass buttons 1800/1922 sewn onto art card with there original German labels,
the Art Nouveau buttons of A Bargas,
buttons made by Gebruder Feix mainly sold in Paris
and the Jinrich Waldes button collection put together by Jindrich Waldes (1876-1941),”world king of buttons” for the Button Museum of Prague which he founded in 1916.
This section is illustrated with 87 pages of colour illustrations of buttons made from:- verre eglomise, glass cut pressed and painted, pressed metal, porcelain, artificial horn, brass, silver, thermosetting plastic, ‘wound glass’, celluloid, plastic, mother of pearl, and wood. Part of this section of the catalogue is divided into:- Men’s buttons, Ladies’ buttons, ‘Other buttons’ not for a third sex but buttons made as souvenirs or for animal accessories such as horses harnesses.
This is a scholarly book for students of both buttons and fashion.
John P Smith July 2007
IL VETRO IN EUROPA
Oggetti, Artisti, e Manifatture Dal 1400 al 1930
Author Silvia Ciappi
Published by Electra, Milan, Italy 2006
Hard back, boxed. 28.5cm high by 25.5cm 370 pages over 400 illustrations.
ISBN 8837 0361 83 €180
This fine book is an overview of European glass from the late Middle Ages to the Art Deco period, in Italian and from an Italian perspective, but not in a biased way. Each chapter is meticulously end noted with references up to and including books and articles published in early 2006.
After an introduction the book is divided into 6 sections, one for each century. Each section starts with a long overview, illustrated largely with contemporary paintings and documents, followed by around 10 to 20 glass objects illustrated full page in colour, with a commentary on the facing page which includes 2 to 3 smaller illustrations of related objects.
The sources are extraordinarily wide ranging. For instance the section of 18th century glass contains an itaglio from Madrid, a painting from the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, a Dutch glass in The British Museum, glasses in Munich, Pavia, Rosenborg Copenhagen, an English glass in Milan, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Murano, Cologne, Stuttgart, La Granja Spain, Dresden, Barcellona, The Victoria and Albert Museum London, Altare Italy, Florence Italy, The Metropolitan Museum New York, Naples and Modena Italy. One of the joys of this book is to discover wonderful items in some of the less well known Italian museums.
This is not a ‘cut and paste’ picture book, the lengthy bibliography is lacking the trivial pot boilers but lists all the important sources the author has used.
Any books must have gaps in it, and a reviewer is bound to point them out, if only to prove that he or she has read the book. There wonderful classical examples of English glass, including a Ravenscroft jug in the British Museum, and the early 4 arms candlestick in the Victoria and Albert Museum, but there is no baluster glass, surely the apogee of English glass making nor any British cut glass. Also in the nineteenth century there is engraved glass by Paul Oppitz but no cameo glass by Woodall or his contemporaries, despite being lauded at the world fairs of the period.
This reviewer has very little understanding of the Italian language and it is to be hoped that the publishers bring out and English language edition for the benefit of the many glass lovers and scholars who have the same impediment as the reviewer.
John P Smith November 2007 |
