Johann Lötz Witwe, Klostermühle

The glass factory was founded in 1836 in Klostermuhle and bought up in 1840 by the smelter Johann Loetz, whose widow ran the works under the name Johann Loetz Widow. The grandson, Max Ritter von Spaun, took over the glass factory in 1879 and completely modernized it.
Johann Loetz Widow was the most significant art glass manufacturer in Bohemia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and enjoyed an international reputation. The firm gained world fame through its Art Nouveau glasses that – following the precedent of Louis C. Tiffany in America – it developed to become an independent and multi-facetted production line. Around the turn of the century when Max von Spaun was achieving great success with glasses with “Phenomenon” décor, the glass works exploited contacts with the Viennese art scene together with the glass retailers E. Bakalowits Söhne, Vienna and J.&L. Lobmeyr, Vienna. The resulting cooperation with artists like Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser and his students reached its zenith in the years after 1900. In these years the metallic iridescent glasses were particularly characteristic. Loetz was finally closed down during the Second World War.