In the first half of the 17th century, the manufacture of hollowware in the Bohemian Lands followed the pattern of Late Renaissance production. Optical decor and embedded, hot shaped decorative elements continued to be used. At this time luxury glass indebted to the Venetian style began to be manufactured alongside ordinary utility glass. A significant shift in the production of Baroque glass took place in the 1770s when colourless, potassium-lime glass known as Bohemian crystal began to be manufactured. A number of different shapes were used during this period. Goblets with tall articulated stems decorated with shallow engraving were manufactured along with beakers, bottles, “humpen” (painted with enamels) etc.. The apogee of Bohemian glassmaking in the Baroque period came in the first half of the 18th century, thanks to the expansion of production of high quality colourless hollowware on which abundant use of cutting and engraving became dominant as a decorative technique. The border regions remained the main centres of production, with the glassworks manufacturing coloured glass (cobalt and ruby, for example) alongside clear glass. Light blue glass appears in the second half of the 18th century, and even opaque white (milk) glass. The baluster goblet held a prime position among manufactured items; there were also sweetmeat dishes, cone-shaped beakers, bottles, jugs, pitchers, etc.. The region of Silesia held a unique position around 1700, when it was the source of items decorated in the cameo gravure technique (relief engraving). In addition to engraving, items were painted in bright enamels, schwarzlot and gold. Rococo painting appears from the mid-18th century, often copying the form and themes of European porcelain of the time. In the first quarter of the 18th century, double-walled glasses (Zwischengoldglaser - decoration in gold leaf between two glass casings) were manufactured in the Bohemian Lands, uniquely in Central Europe.

As its simple, untroubled shapes testify, Classicist (Empire) glass from the beginning of the 19th century was, like other spheres of the visual arts, influenced by admiration for the Ancient World. Colourless glass predominated, decorated mainly with subtle ornamental or figural engraving. From the end of the 1820s, a new trend appeared - Biedermeier - when coloured glass began to predominate. There was also a change in the morphology of drinking and decorative glass, which appears in countless variants of the brilliant (diamond) cut and stereometric principles. Decoration was a combination of cutting, engraving and in some cases painting. The same was true of the Rococo Revival, with the difference that there was a certain simplification of shapes. The main centres for manufacture and decoration were found in northern and southern Bohemia. At the same time, many artists (especially glass engravers) worked during the season in the west Bohemian spa towns. The best known is Dominik Biemann (1800-1857), famous for his excellent portraits. In the 1820s, 1830s and 1840s, new kinds of molten glass were invented and procedures upgraded. Count Buquoy (1781-1851) developed black and red hyalith glass, Josef Riedel was the first to smelt greenish-yellow uranium glass, and Friedrich Egermann (1777-1864) devoted himself to the production of stained and marbled (lythyalin) glass. The glassworks of Count Harrach was the first in Central Europe to master the technology of embedding porcelain paste in glass.

At the beginning of the second half of the 19th century, reforms took place in Western Europe (especially in England) whose aim was the restoration of the quality of arts and crafts. These were based on inspiration from historical artistic styles. In the Bohemian Lands and Austro-Hungary as a whole, a crucial role was played by the glass entrepreneur and artist Ludwig Lobmeyr (1829-1917), who produced luxury glass in the Neo-Renaissance style in cooperation with leading Austrian artists. Later (in the 1870s) art from the Orient (the Near East) served as inspiration for his products. The professional glassworks schools in Kamenicky Senov (Steinschonau, founded 1856) and (Novy) Bor (Haida, founded 1870) in northern Bohemia played an important role in the development of glassmaking at this time. In addition to Lobmeyr the glassworks of Count Harrach, Josef Riedl and Wilhelm Kralik produced high quality glass. Another important operative centre of glass was in the west Bohemian spa Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad), where Ludwig Moser (1833-1916) had his decorating shop that embellished glass at first by engraving, and later by painting in the Arabian and Japanese styles.

The 20th century was a time of expansion of glass production, but also a time of many economic, social and cultural reversals caused by political events at home and abroad, under whose influence both industry and glass art were transformed. At the turn of the 19th and 20th century products in the style of the Secession came into fashion. This involved the whole sphere of applied art, including glass. The shapes of glass vases were set in motion and their surfaces covered with a lively decor of flowers and the stems of plants. The firm of Lotz gained a high reputation among Bohemian manufacturers. Professional artists working with the glassworks came increasingly to the fore. The manufacturing and sales cooperative Artel came into existence in 1908 with the aim of improving the quality of workshop production of utility and decorative items. Art glass prospered after 1918 in the newly founded Czechoslovak Republic, when works with a specific colourfulness and morphology in the spirit of Art Deco appeared and then, from the end of the 1920s, Functionalist utility items for daily use. At the beginning of the 1920s, Josef Drahonovsky at the Academy of Applied Arts established official courses for glass artists. In 1920 a glassmaking school was set up to support local production in Zelezny Brod, a centre of modern glass art.

After 1945, Czech artists defined their main task as the creation of a completely new form of glassmaking. The phenomenon of “studio art” emerged, an art in which the Czech artists often played a leading role internationally. They experimented with the use of glass in sculpture and painting and handled this material in a very original way. They expressed themselves in abstract art, and were inspired by the human form, technology, nature and often the beauty of the glass material itself. One of the greatest contributions to glass art worldwide was the development of mould-melted glass technology, made famous by Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova. Participation in international exhibitions such as EXPO 58 in Brussels, EXPO 67 in Montreal and EXPO 70 in Osaka helped towards the success of Czech glass worldwide. The standard of Czech glass was crucially influenced by the structured system of education in glassmaking headed by the Academy of Applied Art in Prague. At the present time, art glass is still evolving, it abounds in creative ideas and impeccable craftsmanship. Czech glassworks are visited by highly skilled craftsmen and artists literally from the whole world, working together to create highly sophisticated art works in glass. The story of Czech glass has brought many exciting twists and turns, in the course of which glassmaking craftsmen, technologists, artists, teachers, entrepreneurs and businessmen have always managed to find a creative starting point leading to its continuation.