Lead glass for artistic use

To heaven from earth. Coloured glass with a high content of lead oxide for the creation of mould-melted glass sculptures (and more besides).

Glass is a medium that adds clarity and transparency of material, certainly impressive optical properties, to the usual properties of sculpture (shape, colour and surface structure), whilst all the time maintaining traditional solidity. Mould-melted glass is a special creative procedure that in contrast to sculpture made of other traditional materials can be used for artistic effect, offering the transparency and translucence of glass matter – the play of light.

Mould-melted glass is one of the artistic techniques to have brought most fame to Czech and Czechoslovak creative art, predominantly abroad and is a procedure that is certainly technologically more demanding that certain other sculpting processes. Nonetheless, thanks to the glassmaking studios in existence it is one that is available to artists that do not own the required technical equipment. For imagination to be given shape, the artist need not have his own factory.

The glass with a high content of lead made at Division Glass of the Jablonex Group has been designed in such a way as to meet all special requirements demanded of the technology of mould-melted glass. Lead glass satisfies a wide range of demands – it is suitable for small-scale work and for genuinely large glass objects. The characteristic properties of this type of glass are as follows: low viscosity, low cooling temperature and deformation point temperature, high surface quality, high dispersion and optical clarity and excellent properties for cold working.

Lead glass is mostly supplied in the form of hemispheres and round pressings, but it is also possible to produce it in other shapes – bars, rods and blocks. The basic lead oxide content in this glass is 48 %. Glass with a lead oxide content of 15 % and 24 % or new, unprecedented colours and shades can also be made on special request.