Royal Leerdam Crystal
Encyclopedia
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
glassware
Glassware
This list of glassware includes drinking vessels , tableware, such as dishes, and flatware used to set a table for eating a meal, general glass items such as vases, and glasses used in the catering industry whether made of glass or plastics such as polystyrene and...
producing factory, Glasfabriek Leerdam. The company was founded in 1765 as a manufacturer of bottles in the Dutch city of Leerdam
Leerdam
Leerdam is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland.The municipality covers an area of 34.32 km² of which 0.53 km² is water. It comprises the town of Leerdam, the rural villages Kedichem, Schoonrewoerd and Oosterwijk. The south border of the...
.
Designing and glassblowing
Designing and glassblowingGlassblowing
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of a blowpipe, or blow tube...
were in the past strictly separated. Several well known designers as Hendrik Petrus Berlage
Hendrik Petrus Berlage
thumb|120px|left|BerlageHendrik Petrus Berlage, Amsterdam, 21 February 1856 — The Hague 12 August 1934, was a prominent Dutch architect.-Overview:...
, Andries Copier and Willem Heesen have contributed to the Royal Leerdam reputation with a wide range of designer glass, both serica
Serica
Serica, the land of the Seres, was the name by which the Greco-Romans referred to a country in Central Asia.Ancient Mediterranean knowledge of this nation was indistinct and distorted by fables and myths. Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder present more precise descriptions...
and unica. Best known has become the so-called range of products Gilde Glass (1930) by Andries Copier, as an example of both simplicity and beauty.
Glass art created by Royal Leerdam Crystal was and still is very sought after by museums and collectors worldwide.
Museums
- Nationaal Glasmuseum in LeerdamLeerdamLeerdam is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland.The municipality covers an area of 34.32 km² of which 0.53 km² is water. It comprises the town of Leerdam, the rural villages Kedichem, Schoonrewoerd and Oosterwijk. The south border of the...
- Museum van der Togt in AmstelveenAmstelveen' is a suburban municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is part of the metropolitan area of Amsterdam. The municipality of Amstelveen consists of the following villages and/or districts: Amstelveen, Bovenkerk, Westwijk, Bankras-Kostverloren, Groenelaan, Waardhuizen,...
- Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in RotterdamRotterdamRotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
In popular culture
- The factory of Royal Leerdam Crystal was featured in the 1958 short documentary filmDocumentary filmDocumentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
GlassGlass (film)Glass is a 1958 Dutch short documentary film by director and producer Bert Haanstra. The film won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject in 1959. The entire film is about the glass bottle industry.-External links:*...
by Bert HaanstraBert HaanstraBert Haanstra was a Dutch film and documentary director.Haanstra was born in the town of Holten and became a professional filmmaker in 1947. He won international acclaim with his short documentary Spiegel van Holland / Mirror of Holland, for which he received the Grand Prix du court métrage at the...
. The documentary won an Academy Award for Documentary Short SubjectAcademy Award for Documentary Short SubjectThis is a list of films by year that have received an Oscar together with the other nominations for best documentary short subject. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year.-1940s:*1941...
in 1959.
Company news
Royal Leerdam was from 1938 until 2002 part of the Vereenigde Glasfabrieken in SchiedamSchiedam
Schiedam is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. It is part of the Rotterdam metropolitan area. The city is located west of Rotterdam, east of Vlaardingen and south of Delft...
itself more recently a subsidiary of Groupe Danone
Groupe Danone
Groupe Danone is a French food-products multinational corporation based in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. It claims world leadership in fresh dairy products, marketed under the corporate name, and also in bottled water...
S.A. in France. In 2002, the factory became part of the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
glass and tableware company Libbey Inc.
As of January 2, 2008, Royal Leerdam has merged with porcelain
Porcelain
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...
factory De Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles
De Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles
The Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles is the only remaining factory of the 32 earthenware factories that were established in Delft during the 17th century...
, better known as Royal Delft for its Delftware
Delftware
Delftware, or Delft pottery, denotes blue and white pottery made in and around Delft in the Netherlands and the tin-glazed pottery made in the Netherlands from the 16th century....
.