Glass from the Nová Baňa region

In 1630, the Silesian craftsman Michal Ulmb established a glassworks in the settlement now known as Stará Huta. The initiative came from the mining chamber: mines needed laboratory glass and window panes, not just tableware. Products were also exported to Austria and Transylvania, linking local production with customers beyond the region.

Another chapter concerns the glassworks at Rudno nad Hronom, owned by the Ružička family and producing utility glass. In Nová Baňa itself, the factory established in 1907 by Ján Göpfert made pressed, pharmaceutical and cut glass, as well as light bulbs. This range of products shows the many different uses of the same material.

Traditional glass production here ended in 1953. The factory switched to cast basalt and mineral-fibre insulation. The collection's story runs from commissions associated with mining, through everyday objects, to an industrial change in both raw material and product. It is not the history of one glassworks operating continuously since the seventeenth century, but of several factories and stages of local manufacture.