The museum is not interested in the glass wall from the town hall in Jablonec

Jablonec nad Nisou - The glass wall crafted by the duo of glass artists Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, which has adorned the ceremonial hall of the town hall since the 1970s, will remain in Jablonec nad Nisou. The city wanted to donate it to the Museum of Glass and Beads, and last May, the councilors approved the donation contract. However, the museum is not interested in the wall. There is no space for it, said the museum director Milada Valečková today. However, the museum wants to keep part of the sculpture made of three pieces of green-blue lustrous glass, which it has rented from the city.

The duo of Libenský and Brychtová significantly contributed to the development of modern artistic glass. For example, they created the stained glass in the windows of St. Wenceslas Chapel in St. Vitus Cathedral. Their works have been exhibited in numerous foreign galleries and today they are among the most expensive and sought-after artists even on the world market. Their glass sculpture Cross Head from the 1980s sold for a record 1.56 million crowns at a Dorotheum auction in Prague three years ago. No one can estimate what price the sculpture from the Jablonec town hall would have on the market.

"We never considered selling it; it's family silver," remarked the secretary of the town hall, Marek Řeháček. When in 2002 the city rented part of the decoration for one crown a year to the local museum, an expert estimated its value at 450,000 crowns. The second part consisted of a glass wall measuring approximately three by eight meters, assembled from colored bricks. "That work formed the wall in front of the windows of the town hall in the ceremonial hall; today it has been dismantled into the smallest parts, basically glass bricks. We don't even know if it is complete," admitted Řeháček.

He expects that the part rented by the museum will remain on display. "The city currently has no ambition to exhibit it in its spaces," said the secretary. The part that is in crates in the town hall basement will, according to him, stay there. "It will wait for some further use. Its time will definitely come," noted Řeháček. He suggested that it might be possible to use it in one of the buildings in the city, perhaps in the planned transport terminal, which should begin construction next year on Kamenná Street.