(bapt Grossalmerode, Dec 17, 1663; d Altmünden, May 13, 1726).
German glass engraver. His father was the glassmaker Franz Gundelach (fl 1660), and from c. 1669 the family lived in Oranienbaum. By 1682 Gondelach must have been in Kassel, where he married Anna Dorothea Trümper in 1689 and acquired citizenship in 1694. From his arrival in Kassel he seems to have worked for Landgrave Charles of Hesse-Kassel. On 18 January 1688 he obtained an official appointment and is documented as ‘court master glassworker’, ‘court glass engraver’ or ‘princely glass engraver’. Gondelach has been accepted as the most important glass engraver of the Baroque period, as he skilfully mastered the techniques of tiefschnitt (deep-relief) and hochschnitt (high-relief) decoration. His most famous works are three jugs: the first (Pommersfelden, Schloss Weissenstein) was a present from the Landgrave to Lothar Franz von Schönborn in 1715, the second (made before 1714) is in Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen, and the third (also made before ...
