International Paperweight Society

The story of the glass paperweight begins in 1845--little more than fifty years after a mob beheaded Louis XVI and proclaimed France a republic. In this year the great glasshouses of France began to produce pieces of crystal that would permanently impact the history of glass art.

Paperweights--for that was their original purpose--were initially produced as elegant gift items for sale to a burgeoning middle class. The pieces received an instant enthusiastic response The factories of Baccarat, Saint Louis and Clichy strived to surpass each other, and what was first sold as a gift, metamorphosed into a presentation piece. When nations were called to exhibit their finest accomplishments at London's Great Exhibition of 1851, France displayed paperweights.

The French factories established a tradition of glassworking excellence that has lasted for 150 years and today the world's leading glass artists continue to include their most complex glasswork in crystal domes called paperweights.