Baccarat Glass & Crystal was established in 1765 by the Bishop of Metz who wanted to encourage industry in the little village of Baccarat, some 250 miles east of Paris, France. The Verrerie de Sainte Anne at Baccarat made all kinds of utility glassware such as windows, bottles, and tableware, and it flourished for many years. Baccarat survived the French Revolution of 1789 but struggled through the Napoleonic Wars (1812-1815). In 1815, the great French glassworks at Voneche in Northern France found itself outside the new French frontier in the newly created country of Belgium. The owner of Voneche, a Parisian named Aime-Gabriel D'Artigues, bought the Baccarat glassworks so that he could re-establish his business in France and continue to serve French customers without paying heavy import taxes. There is a story that he struck a deal with the King of France to reduce his import taxes from Voneche in return for setting up again in France. The new company Voneche-Baccarat focussed on high quality lead crystal glass, and over the past 180 years Baccarat developed many new techniques formaking the finest crystal glass.

In 1822, D'Artigues sold the glassworks and the new owners set up the Compagnie des Cristalleries de Baccarat (keeping Voneche as part of the name until 1843). It soon became and remains today, the foremost glassworks in France. The company won medals at major exhibitions in Paris from 1823 onward. Baccarat is famous for its wonderful crystal paperweights, its superb crystal glass tableware, for 19th century colored lead crystal glass and "opaline" ware, for beautiful decanters and bottles, and for superb lead crystal sculptures of animals and birds. The Bohemian and Venetian technique of embedding millefiori canes was adopted by Baccarat in the 1840s, and their lead crystal glass paperweights with millefiori designs surpass anything produced in that period from Bohemia or Venice. The technique of embedding cameo sulphides in paperweights was raised to a fine art by Baccarat in the early 19th century, and it continues to be used today.

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