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Amelie Knoll House

- Stará Louka 40 -
The construction of the four-story building, which was built for commercial and residential purposes and later became known as Palacký, started in 1893 and was completed in 1894. The construction was executed according to the project of the Austrian architect and it was ordered by Amelie Knoll. She was the daughter-in-law of the merchant, honorary citizen, and elected mayor of Karlsbad, nowadays Karlovy Vary, Johann Peter Knoll, and Marie Knoll, maiden name Roscher. The current building was built on the place where a Baroque house named Rotes Herz used to stand, which stood there since the beginning of the construction of Karlovy Vary as a world spa town.
Amelie is mentioned as a daughter-in-law in the obituary of Johann Peter Knoll
The commercial part on the first floor was in use as the glass shop of the Bohemian entrepreneur, glass engraver, and founder of the Moser glass factory, Ludwig Löwi Moser. He was born on June 18, 1833, in Karlovy Vary in the Jewish family of Lazar Moser and Henrietta Moser, maiden name Becher. Ludwig Moser completed elementary school in Karlovy Vary, then completed four classes of realism in , after which, in 1847, he continued his studies in . He returned to Karlovy Vary in 1847 to finish his schooling there. Family circumstances forced him to join Andreas Mattoni's glass engraving workshop as an apprentice in 1848. He then wandered to and other places in search of work, returning to Karlovy Vary at the end of 1850, where he worked as an engraver for Mattoni until 1851. After that, Moser went back to Prague, where he attended the Prague Academy of Arts to train in drawing. After another stay in Karlovy Vary in 1853, he went to and , where he worked in a workshop for a few months.
Ludwig Moser and his family in front of their glass shop
In 1855, Ludwig Moser returned to Karlovy Vary and worked as a freelance engraver of monograms, lettering, coats of arms, and ornaments on fountain cups and other glasses. In 1857, he founded the Moser company, initially as a small engraving workshop and glass shop. The high demand for his engravings and stone cuts made it possible to move Ludwig Moser's glass business to a better location in the city. As early as 1873, the business was so prosperous that it obtained the privileges of a court supplier of glass for the court of Emperor and opened sales offices in , , , and . In the beginning, his company was engaged in the production of mirrors in addition to glass, but by the end of the 1870s, mirrors were becoming less and less attractive, so he focused on the sale of drinking and decorative glass. After his death on September 27, 1916, his sons Gustav Moser-Millot, Karl Moser, Friedrich Moser, Leo Moser, and Richard Moser took over the management of the company.
Ludwig Moser around 1908
The symmetrical building, which was built in the Historicism and Neo-Renaissance style with Neo-Gothic influences, features a top gable topped with a lantern tower crowned with a and two dormers topped with a pointed . The top gable contains three , two , and a that can be seen almost above all other windows. The central part of the building is determined by a semi-hexagonal , which is topped with a balcony and contains a loggia. The loggia, like the columns that are placed underneath the two that support the oriel window, are crowned with a Doric , although the two last mentioned columns are also adorned with a cartouche. Underneath the two roof , you can see lavishly decorated alternating with corbels that are adorned with and and like the lesenes also foliage. The railings that secure the balconies are also adorned with volutes, while the stone balustrade and the , are adorned with decorative shells and acanthus foliage. The ornamentation around the windows consists of even more pediments, cartouches, but also richly decorated .
An old postcard from 1914 in which the building is visible