CHAPTER XVI
THE HARD-PASTE PORCELAIN OF GERMANY—(continued).
VIENNA—BERLIN—HÖCHST—FÜRSTENBERG—LUDWIGSBURG—NYMPHENBURG—FRANKENTHAL—FULDA—STRASSBURG.
THE HARD AND SOFT PASTES OF SWITZERLAND, HUNGARY, HOLLAND, SWEDEN, DENMARK, AND RUSSIA.
IN spite of the elaborate precautions that were taken—the oaths of secrecy, the military guards that accompanied the relays of china-clay to the fortress at Meissen in which the works were established—by the middle of the eighteenth century, at nearly all the courts of Germany, imperial, royal, or serene, we find a porcelain manufactory already in full work. It was the fashion of the day, and took its place, like the opera company or the stud, in the equipment of an up-to-date Residenz-Stadt. Only one or two of these princely factories survived the time of turmoil at the end of the century and the Napoleonic invasions. In no single one of the works can we find that any fresh line was struck out or any important improvement made either in technique or in design. The products of these different factories are often to be distinguished only by the marks they bear, and these marks are as often as not forgeries. We shall therefore confine ourselves to a somewhat summary description, pointing out especially the relations of the different centres to one another. The starting of a new manufactory generally depended upon the successful bribing of some official or foreman of works: at the beginning such aid was sought from Meissen, but later on the assistance came from Vienna or from Höchst, so that on this ground the relation of the works to one another might be represented by a rough kind of genealogical tree.
Vienna.—The beginnings of the factory at Vienna were humble. Claude du Paquier, a Dutch adventurer, took out a patent for making porcelain in 1718, and with the aid of an enameller and gilder from Meissen, one Hunger, a man with some knowledge of chemistry, carried on the work on a modest scale, until in 1744 his factory and his secrets were bought by Maria Theresa for 45,000 gulden. The Viennese porcelain was henceforth, until the extinction of the industry in 1864, marked with the Hapsburg shield, generally in blue, under the glaze ([Pl. c]. 28), with the addition, after 1784, of a contracted year-mark.
So long as the kaolin from Passau was employed the paste was inferior to that of Meissen and Berlin, but in later days a better material was obtained from Bohemia. The most flourishing period was from 1770 to 1790, and in 1780, we are told, there were three hundred and twenty men employed. In early years the porcelain did not differ much from that of Dresden, but in 1784, when Conrad von Sorgenthal became director, a new style was introduced which has made the Viennese in some respects the typical ware of a bad period. Much attention was paid to the gilding and to the pigments employed, and the surface of the porcelain was covered by an elaborate and often gaudy decoration. We are, however, informed by an eminent German authority that ‘from 1785 to 1815 the Viennese porcelain among all the manufactures of the time took, from an artistic point of view, the highest rank’ (Jaennicke, Keramic, Stuttgart, 1879). It is in any case remarkable that, during a period of disastrous war and foreign occupation, so much bad porcelain and good music should have been produced at Vienna. It was at this time that the chemist Leithner obtained, for the first time, an intense black from uranium and perfected the process by which platinum is applied in low relief.
To the same chemist we must also attribute another speciality of the Viennese porcelain of this time,—the decoration with designs in polished gold upon a dead ground of the same metal. There are some elaborately decorated plates at South Kensington which well illustrate the merits or demerits of this ware. In spite of the early foundation of the factory, the Viennese porcelain, as a whole, falls into the later ‘sentimental to classical’ period, that contemporary with Marcolini at Meissen and with the earlier hard paste of Sèvres. The historical development of the ware is well illustrated in the Industrial Museum at Vienna, and it may be acknowledged that some success was obtained with small figures and even life-sized busts. A good deal of cheap and meretricious stuff made in the numerous private kilns in and around Vienna in the latter half of the nineteenth century has lately found its way into the English market.
Berlin.—The porcelain of Berlin is of some interest to us for two reasons, one historical and the other of a technical nature. On the one hand it was thanks to the fostering care of the great Frederick that the factory first assumed any importance, and on the other it was the great attention given in later days to choice of materials (together with the refractory nature of the paste) that led to this pure white ware being employed above all others in the laboratory of the chemist. As at Vienna, the origin of the works was humble, and in this case one perhaps might even say ‘shady,’ if we are to believe the story that it was the workmen who had stolen from the pocket of Ringler, the arcanist of Höchst, the papers containing his recipes and private notes, who were engaged in 1750 by the merchant Wegeli, the first to set up a kiln for porcelain at Berlin.[160]
The ware that Wegeli made is not important. We find little figures and groups in imitation of Kändler as well as cups and teapots decorated in blue, sous couverte, with little sprigs; his mark, a W., has unfortunately been used at other factories. It was indeed rather the banker Gotzkowski who was the practical founder of the Berlin works, for Wegeli had abandoned his enterprise at the commencement of the Seven Years’ War.
German writers are not agreed as to what share should be given to the king in the removal of the staff and workmen of the Meissen works to Berlin in 1761. Frederick at that time was hard pressed by his enemies and in great want of money; in the letter, quoted below, he writes that he has nothing left but his honour, his coat, his sword, and his porcelain. He has been accused of forcibly removing to Berlin, not only the workmen, but the artists also and other members of the staff at Meissen. On the other hand, it is claimed that the removal was voluntary, and brought about by the offers of good pay made by Gotzkowski. Frederick at that time had other things to do,[161] and it was not till the close of the war in 1763 that he purchased Gotzkowski’s new works for a large sum. He now had leisure to take a personal interest in the manufacture. About this time the kaolin which had been previously brought from Passau, in Bavaria, was obtained, of better quality, from the quarries near Halle which still supply the Berlin works. The sale of the porcelain was forced with true Prussian energy: its purchase was obligatory for lottery prizes, to the amount of 10,000 thalers every year, and no Jew could obtain a marriage certificate except on the production of the receipt for the purchase of a service of porcelain. It is for this reason that the Berlin ware is in Germany sometimes known as Juden porcellan. Grieninger, a Saxon, was the practical manager of the works from the time of their foundation by Gotzkowski to the end of the century. During this period the porcelain produced differed little from that previously made at Meissen. A shade of pink, derived from the purple of Cassius, was much admired by Frederick, and forms the pendant to the famous rose-colour of his bitter enemy, Madame de Pompadour.
The changes made after this time were chiefly of a practical nature. The horizontal furnaces were early replaced by the cylindrical type now generally in use in Europe, and as long ago as 1799 steam power was employed in the preparation of the materials. The chemist, above all, has at all times played an important part at Berlin.
Many strange applications of porcelain, some more curious than really beautiful, were introduced about the beginning of the nineteenth century. A close imitation of lace and tulle, made by dipping into a specially prepared slip a real tissue which was afterwards burned away, was a nine days’ wonder when first introduced. (A veiled bust in white biscuit of Queen Louise of Prussia, now at Dresden, is perhaps the most famous example of this ware.) Another application of porcelain was to the ‘transparencies’ or lithophanie, in which the design, as seen by transmitted light, was given by variations in the thickness of the paste.