As you have probably already noticed, I am a great lover of everything about the good things and the manufactures of the past.
's pursuit of pieces and the chance to admire the beauty in the details, they took me to my desire to give an interpretation to the Meissen manufactory as that which I consider among the most 'beautiful among the productions of European porcelain. Of course, I do not pretend to play perfectly something that would just be a useless copy (there are too many around!), But the desire, through the techniques of decoupage to create something beautiful and elegant. And so was born the Meissen style of decoration in my creation!
I previewed this technique to the members Découpage Italy (Italian Association of decoupage) in Messina in October and now I'm publishing the proceedings on the number 66 in February 2011 of the journal Laboratory of decoupage.
Watch, does not mean copying, it must develop the techniques in their own way, at all costs try to remake an object with the same colors and the same subjects, only serves to belittle the work that is going to do, you should always put their own, so only the object created will be unique and essence of our personality.
A bit 'of history ....
The history of Meissen, the most 'ancient European manufacture of porcelain, begins as a mystery novel. The protagonists are a very ambitious prince, Augustus II the Strong of Saxony, an alchemist of Thuringia, very young but very good, Johann Friedrich Boettger, and the belief that through these wizards of stills you could get the gold and metals poor.
Before I continue the story by saying that the porcelain in Europe has had two distinct periods of production, that of porcelain from the early sixteenth century to the early years of the nineteenth, and that of hard porcelain, which began in 1710 and continues today. The first news of a hard porcelain were brought to Italy by Marco Polo from China in 1295 where it was created in the period from 200 BC to 100 after Cristo.I first experiments in Europe to play the Chinese porcelain were made in Florence under the patronage of Francesco I de Medici, circa 1575, in its laboratories of alchemy, it was possible to obtain a soft paste porcelain known just as porcelain Medici, imperfect at the technical level because of cracks and bubbles and that was decorated with white patterns and blue china, and hitherto known in it all came to us fifty pezzi.Alla death of Francis I, in fact, the production was abandoned.
But back in Saxony, where the prince is kidnapped our eighteen-year old Friedrich Boettger
and imprisons him in his stronghold of Albrecht in Meissen, not far from Dresden. He forced him to work for years to get the coveted goal of the transformation of the vile gold metalli.E if his experiments were not able to make that precious metals coveted by Augustus the Strong, detect, however, a new source of wealth which, not coincidentally, was nicknamed "white gold".
And here enters the randomness of discovery: it is said that a blacksmith was thrown from his horse together and fell in a puddle. Tarnished and dented got back in the saddle and came home did not bother to clean up the mantle. This, when dry remained covered with a fine white powder. The blacksmith then thought that this dust could replace the flour used in that time to paint the wig and put on sale by organizing a small commercio.Un day, the powder was taken to Prince by his servant, the young Friedrich was curious if I did deliver a small quantity to analyze it ... and discovered that it was pure kaolin: the magical element that caused the porcelain had its birth! In fact it is the kaolin which determines the hardness of the article, because until then the so-called soft porcelain was made only by the most 'different lime products, with a mixture of silica, feldspar, soda, lime and borax. Boettger took advantage of the experience of physical Walther Von Tschirnaus and managed to make the first European porcelain, hard, shiny, compact, durable and valuable the secret of which had already been discovered by the Chinese at least a thousand years earlier, but the formula had been a real mistero.Il January 23, 1710 was announced to the world in four languages , the Elector of Saxony intended to create his own porcelain factory
whose products would be valuable as those imported from the Far Oriente.Friedrich Boettger, despite the discovery Unfortunately did not get that freedom in 1714, it was said that would work tied to a chain: the prince was too scared to come out the secret of porcelain outside the walls of the castle.
He died in 1719, very young, a little more 'than 30 years, sick as a result of the experiments that led into the dungeon of the castle without aeration. Despite the huge income of money, her prince never forgave him for not having discovered the formula of gold!
Boettger's death, the leadership passed into the hands of Johann Gregorius Höroldt who invented a formula, still secret, to increase the color palette. He designed the decoration
European standards, thus breaking away from Eastern models, which were certamente una continuità produttiva ma non furono piu' gli unici decori realizzati.
I nuovi decori si ispirarono alle scene di caccia, ai paesaggi, alle vedute di città, alla pittura fiamminga e francese. Accanto al vasellame prese piede la produzione di vasi ad anfora con coperchio e quelli cilindrici o rettangolari decorati con foglie e fiori su fondo bianco , siglati a partire dal 1723 dalle celebri spade blu incrociate.
Al tempo di Horoldt si crearono anche le famose statuine in porcellana, modellate da Johann Gottlieb Kirchner, che creò in particolare una serie di uccelli, oggi rarissimi sul mercato antiquario. Ad Horoldt succedette Johann Joaquim Kandler che diede a sua volta nella prima metà del Settecento un'impronta molto personale to all production facilities with the famous baroque figurines gallant or satirical, the famous parrots, and all the rococo sculptures depicting scenes from daily life or inspired by the Commedia dell'Arte. The allegorical and mythological vein
will be produced by another legendary name in manufacturing, Italian Camillo Marcolini that he edited until 1814. Becoming
state in 1918, while proceeding in the continuous technical updating to ensure the most 'high-quality production, Meissen still draws its extraordinary cultural legacy that includes over one hundred thousand decorations.
Some important processes in the present work are exactly the same as three centuries ago, for example, every specimen is round shaped with a lathe still in hand (or oval objects with corners are manufactured with stamps) and the decoration is, as then, hand-made with considerable skill because corrections are still not allowed!
I have dwelt perhaps a bit 'too! But if you had the patience to read what I wrote, but you do not share with me the passion for knowledge and the desire to go beyond the simple "look"!
soon
Patrick
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