Rückl

Three centuries of glassmaking, lost and reclaimed

The Rückl family has been making glass for three hundred years. In 1846, Jan Rückl established the first glassworks carrying the family name in Cyranův Wostrov, in what is now Ostrava. By 1903, his descendant Antonín built a new glassworks in Nižbor, right beside the newly laid railroad tracks from Prague. The timing proved right. Within decades, Rückl crystal was traveling to Belgium, England, India, Damascus.

The decades between the world wars brought the golden era. The glassworks employed a thousand workers at its peak. Czech glass artists Ludvika Smrčková and Josef Drahoňovský designed pieces that won the Grand Prix at the 1935 Paris glass exhibition and created an exclusive vase for Czechoslovakia’s first President.

Then came 1945. The state nationalized the glassworks. Cut crystal was declared a bourgeois relic. Production shifted to laboratory vessels and chamber pots. The family name disappeared for nearly fifty years.

After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, restitution was refused. The only way forward was to buy it back. In 1992, Jiří Rückl, great-grandson of the founder, bought the struggling glassworks for 35 million Czech crowns (roughly $1.2 million USD at the time).

“My father advised me to carefully consider the purchase, because it wasn’t just a matter of the company as such, but also the responsibility and care for glassmakers and their families.”

The family returned, bringing the craft with them. In 2017, Martin Wichterle invested in the glassworks, helping bring it into contemporary design. Today, about eighty craftspeople work in Nižbor. The wooden forms still burn with use. The grinders still work by hand. The quality standards remain uncompromised.

Where precision is everything

Every Rückl piece begins with silica glass quarried in the Czech Republic, creating a premium lead-free crystal.

Wooden forms guide the glass into shape. Master woodcrafters carve beech or pear with precision, knowing these forms will burn away with use. Molten glass at 1,200°C gradually chars them. They’re replaced periodically to maintain perfect shape.

Glassblowers gather molten glass and blow it into the wooden forms, turning and shaping as it cools. Each piece carries the breath and touch of its maker. After cooling for hours, a grid is drawn onto the surface, marking reference points for what comes next.

Cutting is where Rückl’s reputation lives. This is the process of grinding patterns into the glass with diamond wheels, creating the sharp cuts that make crystal catch light. Grinders work with wheels rotating on spherical or flatbed machines, performing flat, wedge, and prism cuts. Wedge cuts create stars. Curved cuts produce globes and spools. Each operation requires absolute concentration and years of practice.

“We are renowned for our exceptionally sharp cutting, the precision of which is immediately identifiable.”

After cutting, some pieces receive hand-painted enamel and gilding. Every step happens in Nižbor, checked at each stage. About twenty percent of pieces don’t meet the standard. Those return to the furnace to be melted down and made again. When the piece must be perfect, nothing less will do.

Traditional patterns, contemporary direction

Rückl builds on Bohemian glassmaking heritage, taking patterns refined over centuries and giving them new expression through contemporary eyes.

Designer Rony Plesl created collections that honor traditional Czech cutting: Metamorphosis, Love, Krakatit. His Czech Lion Award design became the country’s most prestigious film trophy. The crystal statuette, shaped like a lion and inspired by Czech Cubism, is handed to winners at the nation’s top cinema honors each year. Kateřina Handlová took over as artistic director in 2022, bringing collections like Heroine and Spirit alongside work for sister brand Bomma. Other designers have contributed through the years, from Wilde glasses to Storytellers beer glasses.

The glassworks has produced state gifts for Queen Elizabeth II, Pope John Paul II, and President Bill Clinton. These commissions were earned piece by piece, proving that when precision matters most, Rückl is the workshop called upon.

Timelessness is at the heart of Rückl’s design ethos. The team draws on classic crystal motifs and cuts, reinterpreting them in clean, versatile forms. The result: objects that suit both the everyday and the extraordinary, without shouting for attention.

“Classic and simple designs stay in style for a long time,”

Kateřina says and that philosophy is visible in everything they make. Rückl returns again and again to a balance of clarity and weight pieces that feel grounded in your hand and graceful on your table.

“Although high-quality crystal glassware may have a higher initial cost, it pays off over time due to its timeless elegance and longevity. Classic and simple designs stay in style for a long time.”

Where masters teach and the craft continues

The glassworks in Nižbor welcomes visitors year-round. Tours show every stage of production, from blowing to cutting to finishing. Master craftspeople share what they know, seeing it as their responsibility to pass the craft forward. 

Workshops let visitors step onto the platform around the furnace and shape molten glass under a master’s guidance, or take a seat at the cutting wheel and try the grinder’s work. Masters who have worked at Rückl for twenty, thirty years teach not just visitors, but the next generation of glassmakers.

That it’s worth buying once and buying well. Rückl offers an antidote to throwaway culture: a chance to bring beauty, ceremony, and meaning back into the home. They believe people are ready to reconnect with the value of handcrafted work not just as decoration, but as part of everyday rituals.

“Each piece of Rückl glassware is handcrafted rather than mass-produced, ensuring exceptional quality and uniqueness. They are not only functional they are also works of art, and hold heritage significance.”