Discover Germany | Culture | Let it Snow
The Stephansdom snow globe.
LET IT SNOW Bill Clinton has one with confetti from his election victory party. Last year’s bestseller was a toilet roll kind. And one falls and smashes so dramatically at the start of the classic film Citizen Kane: these are all Original Vienna Snow Globes. TEXT: WIBKE CARTER | PHOTOS: ORIGINAL WIENER SCHNEEKUGEL E.U.
No company sign, no advertising, just a name plate indicating the place in Vienna’s 17th district from which snow globes are exported around the world. In a small backyard workshop, a little hidden between suburban tenement houses, Sabine Perzy II – the inventor’s great-grand-daughter – and her team at the Original Wiener Schneekugelmanufaktur, manufacture 200,000 snow globes a year. Since her father’s recent retirement, she has taken over the family business, doing everything from designing new motifs and operating heavy machinery, to running the marketing. 28 | Issue 89 | January 2022
The fact that these snow globes exist has a lot to do with chance. When Erwin Perzy, a surgical instrument mechanic, invented the snow globe at the end of the 19th century, he was actually aiming to develop an extra bright light source for use as a surgical lamp. In the process he tried to intensify the candlepower of a so-called ‘Schusterkugel’ (a water filled flask that has been used to focus light since the Middle Ages) with particles made out of different materials for reflection purposes. One of these fillings was semolina. It didn’t really work, but it sank nicely. Just like snow, Perzy thought.
At the same time, he was creating miniature models of the Basilica of Mariazell for a friend who had a souvenir stand in the town. One day, Perzy had the idea of placing a model of the church in the sphere – the ’glass sphere with snow effect’ was born. Perzy had it patented, founded his business in 1900,
Covid snow globe set.
