Antique Meissen Porcelain after 1800
Meissen
The attempts by Count Marcolini, director of Meissen from 1774, to improve the quality of Meissen porcelain were not entirely successful, and at the beginning of the 19th century the factory was still in decline. There were several reasons for this: competition from other porcelain factories in Europe, mass production, and the effects of the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815). When Marcolini retired in 18 14, production was at a level j t high enough to keep the factory open.
Until the mid-19th century mass production grew steadily, thus reducing costs and meeting demand. From the 1820s the factory kept pace with new developments by using “round” kilns that led to a fourfold increase in production, and introducing new techniques and products. In the late 1820s gloss-gilding was introduced; this inexpensive method of decoration used gold mixed in a solution, which was applied to the porcelain. The time-consuming method of hand-pressing clay into moulds to produce plates with moulded decoration was replaced by pouring slip into glass moulds. One of the new mass-produced items was the lithophane (a thin, translucent plaque with moulded decoration that can be viewed by transmitted light), made from 1829, featuring religious or sentimental subjects.
The 19th-century international exhibitions popularized both new and historical styles by displaying artifacts from different cultures and civilizations, and manufacturers copied these objects using new techniques. Taste was now led by the bourgeoisie, and manufacturers’ output became more diverse to meet demand. More than one fashion was often popular at any one time, so 19th-century objects often display a bizarre combination of styles. The Biedermeier style was introduced c.1830; wares are similar in form to earlier Neo-classical pieces but are heavier, and have less elaborate decoration, often being painted with topographical views.
From the early 1830s the Rococo style was revived, and Meissen enjoyed a renaissance owing to its re-use from the late 1840s of 18th-century figure moulds. Rococo Revival figures and wares were greatly
in demand and formed the bulk of the factory’s production during the second half of the 19th century. Produced under the supervision of the chief modeller, Ernst August Leuteritz (1818-93), these figures are of Such typical 18th-century subjects as shepherds and shepherdesses, the aristocracy, and allegorical figures of the Seasons and the Four Continents. They can be distinguished from the originals by their hard, shiny gilding, harsh colours, and overelaborate decoration, such as intricate lacework, made by dipping real lace into the paste. The most notable Meissen products in other revival styles made during the second half of the 19th century include plates and cups and saucers of the 1840s, moulded or painted with Gothic arches and tracery patterns, and blue-ground krater vases painted with Classical scenes imitating medieval and Renaissance enamels. From the 1860s large-scale Renaissance Revival vases, often painted with flowers and blue-ground sections and with curling snake handles, became increasingly popular. From the 1870s the factory produced figures in contemporary costume, although these were outweighed by the number of Rococo and Neo-classical reproductions.
KEY FACTS
• BODY pure white hard-paste porcelain with a distinctive hard, glassy glaze
• STYLES Empire, Biedermeier, Rococo Revival, Neo-classical, Renaissance and Gothic Revivals
• PALETTE harsh versions of 18th-century colours, such as a strong pink and a yellowish green; figures covered completely with paint; hard, shiny gloss-gilding
• DECORATION encrusted flowers; topographical views on Biedermeier wares
Example
mythological figure group of a maiden sitting on a Neoclassical stool, binding Cupid’s wings with a ribbon, was
produced using a model that had originally been made by Christian Gottlieb Juchtzer, one of the modellers working at Meissen in the Neo-
classical style during the late 18th century The rather harsh palette, so typical of 19th-century Meissen figures and wares,
is especially
evident in the
red drapery over
the attendant’s
shoulder, which would never have been used on an 18th-century figure.