The history of porcelain – interesting and educational facts. History of porcelain - interesting and educational facts Which country is the birthplace of porcelain

21.09.2024

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History of porcelain - interesting and educational facts Which country is the birthplace of porcelain

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The city of Meissen is located 25 km from Dresden. It is famous not only for its porcelain, but also for its medieval castle.
The Albrechtsburg fortress stands on a high cliff on the banks of the Elbe, built in Meissen in the 15th century as the residence of the Saxon electors.

In 1710, Augustus the Strong ordered the establishment of the first European porcelain manufactory here, which was located in the castle until 1863. Nowadays there are tours of the porcelain factory, and there is also a souvenir shop.

A cool excursion to the Meissen Porcelain Factory: the group walks through the halls, in each of which there is a master who shows the porcelain production process at one of the stages.

As an accompaniment, a recording is included explaining the process itself in your language. In the photo - a master of painting dishes.

At the factory there is a porcelain museum and, accordingly, a store. The prices there are of course staggering. There is a huge amount of dishes and other porcelain products there, so you feel like a bull in a china shop.
We only relaxed in the cafe at the museum. We drank tea from Meissen porcelain and ate a cake with skewers, that’s all we could afford -))

Crossed swords are an ancient trademark of Meissen porcelain. The blue swords, taken from the Saxon coat of arms, appeared on Meissen porcelain in 1722 and are therefore one of the oldest trademarks in the world.

Today, Meissen produces: porcelain sets 50%, art porcelain 25%, porcelain figurines 15%, exclusive porcelain products of the author's design 10%.

The Meissen porcelain manufactory employs 900 people, of which 450 are artists and sculptors. 60% of Meissen porcelain is sold in Germany, 40% is exported.

Meissen porcelain includes over 175 thousand items of various products and about 10,000 colors and shades.

Selected products of the plant are kept today in the Dresden Museum, the Metropolitan, the Louvre, the Hermitage, and the Tretyakov Gallery. The first samples of Meissen porcelain came to Russia back in 1728.

More posts about Germany.

vaduhan_08 in WHY GZHEL IS THE HOMELAND OF CHINESE PORCELAIN

My attempt to understand the history of porcelain turned into a forensic study with a lot of amazing finds and forgeries in the history of chemistry, painting and the history of China and Europe.

Where did porcelain come from? Well, the natural answer is from China. And when? Even in ancient times, porcelain was made in China, any child knows this! Do you know what ancient Chinese porcelain looked like, not the kind that is now sold on the shelves, but the real, very expensive one?

And so, for this vase at auction they paid 40,000,000 (forty million dollars)!!! :-)))

When I saw this by chance, I was amazed... it's Gzhel!!!
Of course, we are used to seeing Gzhel like this

But let's return to the history of porcelain, what do they write in textbooks about the first European porcelain. In Europe, their own porcelain appeared at the end of the 17th century in the city of Meissen, where the first factory was opened, and then off it went! But...before that, porcelain was only Chinese...and VERY expensive. Well, now I wasn’t very surprised when I saw what this porcelain was like...

Well, to be completely sure, you need to add Dutch and Spanish porcelain

Not much Spanish with Arabic overtones...

Here is Uzbek porcelain, the same since time immemorial...

And only poor Gzhel, of course, is not ancient at all, this is what they write on the official website of the Gzhel porcelain factory: - The Gzhel fishery, located sixty kilometers from Moscow, is one of the leading and oldest centers of ceramics production in Russia. The so-called “Gzhel bush” is 27 villages that nature has endowed with unique clay deposits.

Mining of different types of clay was carried out in this area already in the 17th century. Local varieties were highly appreciated by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich himself, who made the Gzhel volost a permanent supplier of clay for the production of dishes “for pharmaceutical needs.”

Mikhail Lomonosov also noted the high quality of the “excellent whiteness” of Gzhel clays, repeatedly assuring the public that this material is a real treasure, comparing them with those varieties that are used to make precious porcelain. Until the 18th century. In Gzhel, the usual, for that time, pottery, bricks and primitive toys were produced, which were sold in Moscow. But after the discovery of light gray clay in the area of the village of Minino, a new production arose - semi-faience.

Original jugs, kvass and kumgans were made from it, and from the end of the 19th century. An original style of painting also emerged - a blue ornament on a white background.... Here two phrases are surprising: semi-faience and the original style of painting! That is, everywhere this garbage is called porcelain, but here it is semi-faience! In general, what does the word porcelain mean? It’s simple, it turns out that this is a white dense ceramic material obtained by sintering a mass of refractory clay, kaolin, feldspar, quartz... but still we don’t have porcelain, but just semi-faience... damn it.

The word “porcelain” came into Russian from the Persian language. The word “fakhfur” was used by Persian merchants to describe Chinese dishes made of white semi-translucent ceramics, which they traded in Europe. Well, everything is just like it is now - Persian merchants are selling the oldest Chinese Kalashnikov assault rifle to European peace fighters in unfortunate Albania.

But let's return to Gzhel. Gzhel porcelain was not always so round and popular, old Gzhel is elegant and sophisticated in its painting, without any Khokhloma!

Isn't it very similar to the ancient Chinese.... well, I'm getting ahead of myself, the crime is just beginning! When I typed the phrase old Gzhel, very interesting information appeared - it turns out that it is very rare and also very expensive, not like Chinese - it’s also thousands of years old, and this one is only 200 - 300, but still. I came across an article by an expert on how to distinguish an old one from a fake! It turns out it's all about the paint! Indeed, all ancient porcelain is painted with blue paint, and that’s what it’s all about, the whole story!

Next there will be chemical terms and whoever is not interested should already scroll to the end of the song, but it is just beginning!
It turns out that the technology for producing Gzhel is very complex - first they make a liquid mixture, it is poured into a MOLD like your favorite “geopolymer concrete”, this form is made of gypsum, then, when the gypsum absorbs water, the workpiece (casting) is ground and fired for the first time, at a temperature of 500 degrees.

Then they apply black paint on the color - this is cobalt aluminate, which, as I understand it, is obtained from a mixture of clays which, just in Gzhel, “grows” in the ground. Neither in China, nor in Holland, nor anywhere else is it located together with white clay!!! this is the key point! Moreover, not every clay contains the necessary impurities.

So this paint is black!

You see the first experience in the production of Gzhel by Dutch masters, for some reason the paint remained black... but should have been blue?? how so??? But so, well, the Americans don’t know how to make rocket engines, they fly with ours, they probably don’t know the secret, they haven’t sold everything yet!

So this is the secret that the Gzhel masters kept like a boy kibalchish a military secret... the blank painted with black paint must be dipped in glaze and fired again, but at a temperature of 1300 C., and this is a specially designed oven in which such a temperature can be created! !!

There is a story that a master from Holland came to teach how to make Gzhel, many bones and joints were probably broken before the Dutch master taught the Gzhel masters how to make ancient Chinese porcelain! They probably showed him everything, he went home joyfully, but at home poke and poke, but no stone flower came out, he went again to learn how to make Gzhel, again the bones cracked!....

Well, okay, things are in the past... so at a temperature of 1300 degrees, the paint interacts with the glaze, oxidizes and colors the glaze a beautiful blue color! The whole beauty of this porcelain is that it is covered with glass, painted glass, and the white porcelain shines through and glows. You can hold anything in it, even sulfuric acid, and the paints do not change their shine. I became a porcelain specialist. It turns out that everything else is nonsense, the paints are applied on top of the glaze!

BUT in the 18th century in Europe they got paint - cobalt, by firing clay with mixtures, the paint is blue, beautiful, and they began to paint on porcelain with it and then cover it with glaze and fire it, but at the same time the glaze remains transparent, and not blue, as in Gzhel and old Chinese porcelain. This is what the criminologist was talking about, well, you can’t first apply paint, any other, and then fire it until you get a glaze, it’s 1300 degrees and other paints are destroyed, please cover white porcelain with glaze, but then the paint is on top, like all other porcelain !

This Uzbek porcelain is painted with glaze and gold on top, so the paint will peel off over time.
But the pseudo-antique Chinese porcelain is definitely Chinese, because it is painted with glaze, and the paint will soon flake off!

But this is the eternal and beautiful old Gzhel, there is very little of it by the way, much less than any Chinese. Because this is real ancient Chinese porcelain, and who needs to know it!!!

And the word porcelain... in ancient times, when the letter T was written very similar to F, they didn’t know any porcelain, but they knew TARTARUS! And they knew very well where this porcelain came from!

In 1710, Augustus the Strong ordered the establishment of the first European porcelain manufactory here, which was located in the castle until 1863. Nowadays there are tours of the porcelain factory, and there is also a souvenir shop.

A cool excursion to the Meissen Porcelain Factory: the group walks through the halls, in each of which there is a master who shows the porcelain production process at one of the stages.

As an accompaniment, a recording is included explaining the process itself in your language. In the photo - a master of painting dishes.

Today, Meissen produces: porcelain sets 50%, art porcelain 25%, porcelain figurines 15%, exclusive porcelain products of the author's design 10%.

The Meissen porcelain manufactory employs 900 people, of which 450 are artists and sculptors. 60% of Meissen porcelain is sold in Germany, 40% is exported.

Meissen porcelain includes over 175 thousand items of various products and about 10,000 colors and shades.

More posts about Germany.

It's December 30th outside the window and we wake up in Dresden in our cozy room. In the morning we have the Castle Residence planned with Grunes Gevolbe (Green Vaults) and other exhibitions. We went there along the already familiar route by tram. It should be noted that Grunes Gevolbe is one of the richest and most famous jewelry collections in the world and the richest in Europe! Unfortunately, you can’t take photographs in the palace museums, so I can’t show you anything, but if you find yourself in Dresden, be sure to go there!

After the museums, we took the tram, got to our stop, bought hot Saxon pastries and had a little snack in our room. Now, we had to go, already by car, to the nearby but famous city of Meissen (in German it is pronounced Maysen - Meißen, but oh well). This city is located a little over 20 kilometers from Dresden, downstream of the Elbe. I intended to go there along the left bank, so that’s what we did. However, adventures immediately began. The car started up, but the check light came on and it was very rough at idle. Despite this, I decided to go, although from time to time it was very stressful.

If in Dresden there was a confident plus (seven degrees Celsius), then in the shadow of the mountain slopes on the left bank of the Elbe there was frost on everything, and when we stopped to take a couple of shots from a distance, I almost stretched out next to the car, since the parking lot was... I'm a complete skating rink. Actually, in the photo below you can see frost on the grass, despite the fact that it is already near the river, and there is less shadow and warmer there.

In the distance, on a mountain cliff, rises the majestic Albrechtsburg, the residence of the Saxon electors of the Wettin dynasty, built in the 15th century.

And on the opposite bank there are houses of trustworthy burghers.

And there are many vineyards around them, fortunately, that slope is sunny.

Well, we go to Meissen itself.

Having passed almost under the castle itself ( No. 1 on the map), we park in a free public parking lot (on the map it is visible just below the number 3). There are a lot of cars, but we managed to find a place.

The castle is almost hovering above us!

We're trying to find a place to climb...

Gradually walking around the castle in a circle.

Olka found “plant skeletons” on the house and asked to grieve with them. Warning questions, the bottle is not ours! :)

And this is what the houses look like under the castle.

Finally, we find the rise. At the entrance there is a small house, the functional load of which remains unknown to us. We're going up the stairs.

Now, above the roofs of the houses, the opposite shore has already appeared.

The complex of buildings at the top of the ridge is the Franciscan Gymnasium ( No. 5 on the map).

In the background, just to the left of the castle, you can see the Evangelical Church of the Holy Trinity (Trinitatiskirche) ( No. 6 on the map), which stands on the site of a pre-Christian Slavic temple. The current building, with extensive alterations, has been preserved since the 13th century. Telephoto allows you to zoom in and capture it in great detail.

I turn my gaze to the right and behind the railway bridge I catch in the viewfinder the spire of the bell tower of the Church of St. John (Johanneskirche) ( No. 7 on the map).

I continue to capture the details of the world around me.

What I almost never participate in is photographs against the backdrop of “something”

And this is a photo of the photographer of the previous photo :)

Panorama without posing individuals :)

Below us is the banquet center of Meissen, in the past the Jacob's chapel (Jacobskapelle) and the Masonic lodge ( No. 3 on the map).

I notice a building with interesting architecture on the other side, zoom in, and the photo is ready. As it turned out later, this is just a hotel - Welcome Parkhotel.

Well, a little more photographic, here is a house taken on the other side of the Elbe, focal length 116

But here are the people under him from a focal length of 500.

It's time for us to go inside the castle. The first thing we will get acquainted with is Meissen Cathedral ( No. 2 on the map). From below we saw its two tall pseudo-Gothic bell towers, but for now let's go inside.

First we find ourselves in the courtyard. The cathedral itself is an example of pure Gothic architecture. A significant part of the currently visible building was built in the second half of the 13th century. Neo-Gothic bell towers were added at the beginning of the 20th century.