In 1777, in St. Petersburg, by order of Count G. A. Potemkin, glass and mirror factories were built not far from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in the Obvodny Canal area. Over time, a whole complex of structures related to glass production grew here. Factory workers also settled here. This place became known as the Glass Town. After the death of the count in 1791, the factories were bought out by the treasury, and this is how the Imperial Glass Factory appeared.

The Imperial Glass Factory produced high-quality artistic products for decorating palace interiors. Many of them were made according to the designs of outstanding architects who created the unique appearance of St. Petersburg: Thomas de Thomon, C. Rossi, A. Voronikhin.

Ippolit Antonovich Monighetti, a Russian architect and watercolorist, academician and professor at the Imperial Academy of Arts, was born into the family of a Swiss mason Antonio Monighetti, who lived and worked in Moscow. Having successfully graduated from the Stroganov Art School, he entered the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1834, where his mentor in architecture was Professor A.P. Bryullov, the elder brother of the famous painter Karl Bryullov. Monighetti, who worked a lot on orders from the royal family and the highest aristocracy, is better known as an ornamentist and creator of drawings for artistic and industrial production.

At the Imperial Factory they used painting with gold, silver, enamel paints, engraving and etching with a solution of hydrofluoric acid, “diamond edge” and cutting. Some of the factory’s products were used as diplomatic gifts. The plant sold part of its products through its own store (until 1856) and several merchant shops. The plant’s artistic products have always been a great success at Russian and international exhibitions. At the end of the 19th century, the Imperial Glass Factory was merged with the Imperial Porcelain Factory.

After the Napoleonic War, the Imperial Glass Factory produced a series of cups and glasses decorated with white glass medallions with commemorative inscriptions and images of Russian commanders. On the first cup with the imperial monogram of Alexander I there is an inscription in gold letters: “In memory of the capture of Paris on March 19, 1814”; on the second, an allegorical figure of Glory is depicted flying over a map of Europe, indicating the locations of major battles.

Emperor Nicholas I built a small summer palace in Peterhof for his wife Alexandra Feodorovna. In her honor, the estate was named Alexandria, and the palace in the neo-Gothic style was called “Cottage”. A special coat of arms was invented for the palace, which is depicted on the facades of the building and repeated in its interiors: a white sword on a blue background, drawn through a wreath of snow-white roses, and an inscription in gold letters: “For the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland.” The coat of arms was invented by the poet Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky at the request of Nicholas I. The medieval motifs of the coat of arms in the shape of a shield correlate with the neo-Gothic style of the cottage, and the white rose was the Empress’s favorite flower.

The Imperial Factory produced sets with the image of the coat of arms. Stained glass windows (a completely new thing for Russia) were also developed there for the Gothic Chapel, built next to the palace.

In 1839, artists Terebenev and Semechkin (Semyachkin) invented a new method of printing on glass and ceramics. In the early 1840s they worked at the Imperial Glass Factory, producing glass with printed images of the imperial family, as well as copies of popular sets of engravings. Eventually they founded their own workshop.