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Paulus, Johann Eder
generations, however, were registered as Lutherans.
48
Religious liberty for Catholics was
granted in Norway in 1843, only.
49
Besides the particular religious circumstances, Minken has investigated many other aspects
of the living conditions of the immigrant glassmakers, such as the linguistic environment and
its interactions. For example, she reports that the contracts with glassmakers were generally
drafted in their native language
–
German or English, respectively
–
if they did not speak the
Danish official language.
50
Correspondingly, the factory rules of Nøstetangen were bilingual
–
Danish and German.
51
Minken also explains that numerous German technical terms of the
glass trade have found their way into the Norwegian language.
52
The Recruitment for Spain
According to the available facts, Johann Eder must have left Norway after August 1749, or in
early summer of 1750, at the latest. From there, the family went
–
possibly via Germany
–
to
Spain.
53
Certainly, the religious restraints, described above, were one of the reasons for the
devout Catholic Johann Eder and his family not wanting to stay in Norway forever and to look
for new challenges in a Catholic environment.
Unexpecte
dly, after the publishing of my article „Bayerische Glasmacher auf der Iberischen
Halbinsel“ („Bavarian Glassmakers on the Iberin Peninsula“) a source has been discovered
giving information where and how Johann Eder was recruited for Spain. Until then, Spanish
glass researchers had assumed that he had been recruited in Paris, together with French
glassmakers arriving at the same time. That assumption has now turned out to be wrong.
The Spanish painter Antonio Ponz (1725
1792) had travelled Spain in 1771. In 1781 he pub-
lished a book on this journey, entitled „Viage de España“.
54
Therein, he also describes the
glass factory of La Granja de San Ildefonso which he had visited, and he reports on the re-
cruitment of the glass master Johann Eder. We may assume that this report is based on an
interview with the head of the factory, Johann Eder’s eldest son Joseph. The latter was 27
years old, when his family came to Spain, and he had accompanied his father on his jour-
neys as an adolescent and later on as an adult.
48
Ibid.
49
M
INKEN
, Innvandrere, as above note 35, p. 124.
50
Ibid., p. 174.
51
Ibid., p. 175.
52
Ibid., p. 189-191.
53
Cf. P
AULUS
, Bayerische Glasmacher, as above note 2.
54
Antonio P
ONZ
, Viage de España: en que se da noticia de las cosas mas apreciables, y dignas de
saberse, que hay en ella; Madrid 1781.
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Paulus, Johann Eder
According to Ponz, Johann Eder was recruited in Copenhagen by the envoy of the Spanish
King.
55
Most probably, this took place at the occasion of one of those journeys which had led
the family to Copenhagen to attend church. Here is the translation of Ponz’s re
port:
“The
fame of that establishment [San Ildefonso]
had spread beyond Spain, and a Master named
Eder, who held a factory of his own in Norway,
56
came to Copenhagen to meet the Spanish
envoy, and proposed that he would like to come to San Ildefonso to establish a new factory,
if the King agreed with the conditions he would propose. He offered to blow large glass that
would serve for doors, windows, cabinets, canvas, etc. without the necessity of operations
like grinding and polishing. The King accepted him to come with those persons whom he
would consider helpful; after having proceeded so, Eder established the factory named today
“Primera de entrefinas”, because the glass made there is of such quality that also an assor
t-
ment of crystal vases, flasks and bottles and many other things are being made, there. The
King assigned a salary to Master Eder and to his two sons Joseph and Lorenzo, the former
of them being, nowadays, the Master of this operation and
, as well as of that of “Planos
finos” [= fine plate glass].“
57
This important contemporary source confirms Eder’s previous stay in Norway. Other later
records also mention Eder’s Norwegian provenance
.
In Francisco Reuleaux’s encyclopedic
work “Los grandes inventos. Fabricación y elaboración del vidrio” of 1889, the glass master
of San Ildefonso, Johann Eder, is referred to as
„El maestro Eder de Noruega“
(„Master Eder
from Norway“).
58
Other Spanish sources call Eder a Swede.
59
It is doubtful whether we may
conclude from this, that Johann Eder had become a Swedish subject during his years at
Kosta and Limmared. Anyhow, it is obvious that Eder’s original provenance from Germany,
or even Bavaria, had widely fallen into oblivion.
Besides the prospect of a life in a Catholic country, the concessions offered and the com-
mitments of the Spanish court to the conditions tabled by the obviously self-confident glass-
maker may have been decisive for Eder’s departure f
or Spain. Compared to the living condi-
tions in the forbidding woodlands of Sweden and Norway, where the family had spent almost
a complete decade, the prospect of living in the Spanish San Ildefonso with all its comfort of
an urban environment, unreserved possibility to worship, at sighting distance from the sum-
mer residence of the Spanish King, must have appeared to them like paradise.
55
Ibid., p. 128-129.
56
The statement that Eder owned a glass factory in Norway is not correct. The glassworks of
Nøstetangen was a royal enterprise. At the utmost,
Eder was a foreman, there.
57
Cf. P
ONZ
, Viage, as above note 54, p.128-129.
58
Francisco R
EULEAUX
, Los grandes inventos. Fabricación y elaboración del vidrio, Madrid 1889,
p. 608.
59
Cf. Juan F. R
IAÑO
, The Industrial Arts in Spain, London 1879, p. 244.