Isabella Sundberg from Riihimäkä has a treasure: a glass Christmas ornament belonging to the tsar's family

Small a glass Christmas tree ornament in the shape of a basket hung in the Christmas tree of a Russian emigrant family in Östersundom, Sipoo, at the beginning of the 1900th century. Tekla Nyberg served as a maid for the tsar's relatives, and when the family bought new decorations, she received a small basket as a gift. Now it is with his great-granddaughter Isabella Sundberg in Riihimäki, and it will be on display at the glass museum's exhibition for a month.

An exhibition has just opened at the Finnish Glass Museum in Riihimäki, which displays nostalgic Christmas decorations made in the small German town of Lauscha using the traditional mouth-blowing technique.

Sundberg is the creator of more than 200 glass balls

Isabella Sundberg from Riihimäkä is a real Christmas person who decorates the Christmas tree already in mid-November. He has over 200 Christmas tree glass balls. Sundberg brought his treasure, my great-grandmother's old spruce ornament, to be evaluated by amanuensis Uta Laurén, who had put together a glass exhibition.

Laurén notes that it is a Lauscha model from the end of the 1800th century. The groovy heel part reveals it to be really old. Laurén gets excited, and asks for Sundberg's ornament for the exhibition. It gets to the display case with the oldest Christmas decorations.

"I got the ornament from my 93-year-old grandmother, who got it from her mother. My great-grandmother was a maid in the tsar's family in Sipoo. The family's second home was in Cannes. Grandma told me that she secretly watched Mannerheim from behind the curtains, who was there to celebrate. The servants sometimes received old clothes and objects as gifts from their families, and that's probably where this Christmas ball comes from. An ordinary serviceman would not have been able to afford such decorations," says Sunberg.

Laurén says that Lauscha spruce decorations became popular through European nobles and courts. Queen Victoria's German husband, Albert, brought Christmas decorations to England. He is from Coburg, which is near Lauscha.

"All the Courts were related to each other, and Christmas decorations also spread to Russia through the imperial family. A small basket blown from the model of Isabella Sundberg's Christmas tree decoration is still being made".

The Glass Museum is a Christmas man's paradise

Uta Laurén, the curator who designed the exhibition, says that Lauscha's mouth-blown and hand-painted Christmas balls and decorations are world-famous. Decorations have been made in the town since the middle of the 1800th century, and there is a glass school called Berufsfachschule Glas. Lauscha lives Christmas all year round.

"The end of a hollow glass tube is heated with a hot gas flame, and a glass blower blows a ball out of it. He can also blow a glass ball into a mold, making it, for example, Santa Claus, an angel, a mushroom or a flower basket. Later it will be painted," explains Laurén.

The models of traditional glass ornaments have remained almost unchanged for decades. Many of Lauscha's glass workshops are small one-man businesses.

"We ordered Christmas tree ornaments blown by Michael Haberland from Lauscha for our store: for example, Santa Claus, an angel, a soot crasher, a church and birds. He uses a lot of his great grandfather's old molds. Lauscha decorations are handmade from start to finish."

The shop also has Czech auto-blown glass balls, but they are hand-painted. Blowing with an automatic machine is cheaper than manual work.

"To get the exhibition to Riihimäki, I went to Lauscha twice to negotiate. The exhibition features hundreds of spruce decorations on loan from the glass museums in Lauscha and Gernheim. There is also something from our own collections, as we received a large donation in the 1980s."

Glass eyes are like small works of art

The main focus of the exhibition is on technology, glass blowing with a gas lamp. Most of the Christmas decorations are in showcases divided by era, and contemporary production is also on display. Nostalgic, new decorations made according to old models are difficult to distinguish from the old ones.

In addition to the Christmas tree decorations, there are art objects, vases and miniature sculptures on display. The most surprising thing is to notice that glass eyes are also made with the same technique!

"There are two companies manufacturing glass eye prostheses in Lauscha. Ocularprothetik Müller-Uri lent nine glass eyes to our exhibition and they also made a working stage box. Making glass eyes started in Lauscha in 1835, when an ophthalmologist from Würzburg encouraged master glassblower Ludwig Müller-Uri to make glass eye prostheses," says Laurén.

Prosthetic eyes are like custom-made small works of art. The material used is cryolite glass, which is produced in only one glass factory in the world.

A new ball every Christmas

German ornaments from Lauscha and Czech ornaments hang on the market roof of the museum shop. All the decorations are handmade, hand-painted and decorated with gas flame using lamp technology.
German decorations cost 5-26 euros and Czech decorations 1,50-22 euros.

Sundberg wanders around the museum shop admiringly and says that every year he buys a new glass Christmas ball for himself and his three children.

"From here, four Lauscha glass Christmas tree decorations are leaving with me: a cuckoo clock, a bird, a flower and a mushroom. They are really beautiful.”

Reija Ypyä