Moser

The original company Moser glassworks, founded in 1857 by Ludwig Moser in Karlovy Vary (called Karlsbad at the time), was a glass workshop initially devoted to polishing and engraving glass blanks. Later, the company began designing and making its own art glass products. Engraving blanks from Loetz, Meyr's Neffe, and Harrachov was performed by the workshop in the early years. At the Vienna International Exhibition of 1873, Ludwig was awarded a medal for merit; he was appointed the exclusive supplier of glass to the Emperor Franz Joseph in the same year. Moser won several awards in the coming years, including medals at the World Exhibitions in Paris in 1879, 1889, and 1900, and in the World Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. Ludwig took over a glass factory in Dvory (German: Meierhofen, now part of Karlovy Vary) in 1893 to create a full-service glasswork company employing 400 people. It was named Glassworks Ludwig Moser & Sons (Czech: Sklárny Ludwig Moser a synové, German: Glasfabrik Ludwig Moser & Söhne), where his sons Gustav and Rudolf also worked.

In 1904, Moser received a warrant to supply the Imperial Court of the Emperor of Austria and four years later became a supplier to Edward VII. In 1915, the company exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and was again awarded a medal, which Louis Comfort Tiffany and Charles Tuthill thought well deserved due to the outstanding quality of the hot-glass applied decorations on coloured Bohemian glass. Art Nouveau glass pieces were produced by Moser with surface decoration with natural themes and simple cameo glass. They also used the Eckentiefgravur technique, employing a sharp angular body deeply cut in the form of intaglio flowers.

Following the death of his father in 1916, Leo Moser took over the direction, and the company expanded significantly, resulting in their recognition by a Grand Prize award at the Paris International Exhibition of Decorative Art in 1925. They also exhibited in London, Belgium, Italy, and Vienna. The Art Nouveau designs of heavily engraved lilies and the Fipop series from c. 1914 were some of the most notable pieces. Between 1927 and 1933, two American glassmakers made copies, calling them Woodland and Deerwood. Moser was one of the few Czechoslovak glassmakers to sign their pieces.

The depression of the early 1930s affected the company, reducing its staff to 240; eventually, Leo resigned from the company in 1932. Later, having sold their company shares in 1938, they fled the country after areas of Czechoslovakia were annexed. The city of Karlovy Vary was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1938 after the Munich Agreement, and the family fled the country during this anti-Semitic period. Because of its international reputation, the company was able to retain some independence during the communist era while the rest of the Czech glass industry was nationalised in 1948 (Crystalex).