Claudius Innocentius du Paquier

Paquier is a redirect to this article. For further meanings see Le Pâquier .

Claudius Innocentius du Paquier (*  1679 ; †  1751 ), whose origin is uncertain, was the founder of Europe's second porcelain factory in Vienna in 1718 .

biography

Before his career in porcelain production, the young du Paquier worked as a court war council agent in the service of the imperial administration. Only the Saxon elector and king in Poland , August the Strong , had so far with his Meissen porcelain factory in Europe the scientific recipe for the production of the precious " white gold ", which was protected from the outside world under strict precautionary measures at the Albrechtsburg . Despite the shielding of the essential workers, du Paquier succeeded in bringing some of the craftsmen from Meissen to Vienna through diplomatic channels through the imperial ambassador to the Polish-Saxon court in Dresden, Damian Hugo von Virmont . The first location of the porcelain manufactory was far outside the city area, whereby the factory moved to the suburb of Rossau in the Count's Breuner'sche summer house on Alserbach around 1721 for logistical and spatial reasons . After initial technical experiments, porcelains were first made, which, in addition to East Asian, were sometimes also influenced by Meißen motifs, but in the course of time turned more and more to the baroque world of forms of the imperial capital. Decorative elements of the architectural interior, motifs from the sculpture and influences from the contemporary painting of the era influenced the porcelain design of the Viennese manufactory, whose works move in an extraordinary way between playful baroque forms and classical rigor.

With the establishment of the porcelain company, Emperor Karl VI. in 1718 a "Special Privilegium" which du Paquiers Manufaktur placed under a 25-year protection and granted it a monopoly on the rights of porcelain manufacture within the Habsburg lands. The imperial court in Vienna was particularly interested in du Paquier's establishment of a porcelain factory, as this enabled Chinese imported goods to face domestic competition, and economic capital remained in the country.

Nevertheless, the history of the Viennese porcelain manufactory was extremely changeable and was always marked by ups and downs. After 25 years of privilege and good sales, the company was heavily indebted and du Paquier was forced to sell his company despite a loan from the City of Vienna. Under Empress Maria Theresa of Austria , the manufacture came into imperial ownership in 1744 and was nationalized.

Major works

Porcelain room from the Dubsky Palace in Brno, 1720–1735. Place of issue: MAK Vienna

Du Paquier produced for both the imperial court and the nobility. By far the most important work of the manufactory was not intended for the emperor, but for Countess Maria Antonia von Czobor, a born princess of Liechtenstein . Around 1700, so-called “porcelain cabinets” became modern in Europe, and they were furnished by Countess von Czobor in the Brno palace she had acquired . The porcelain room from what was later to become the Dubsky Palace in Brno has one of the first room furnishings to feature European porcelain. The room contains over 1500 pieces of porcelain, which must have been made between the years 1720 and 1735. Investigations into the wall paneling have shown that the interior was originally made for a different, unknown location and was only later adapted to the Brno Palace in its dimensions. In 1912 the porcelain room was purchased for the collection of the Imperial and Royal Austrian Museum for Art and Industry in Vienna (now the Museum of Applied Arts ).

Others

In 1862 the Porzellangasse in Vienna- Alsergrund (9th district) was named after Du Paquier's manufactory.

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Paquier, Claudius Innocenz du . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 21st part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing House, Vienna 1870, p. 284 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Jacob von Falke: The KK Wiener Porzellanfabrik - its history and the collection of its work in the KK Oesterreichisches Museum . Gerold Publishing House, Vienna 1887.
• Wilhelm Mrazek: Viennese porcelain from the Du Paquiers manufacture (1718–1744) . Publishing house d. Austrian Museum f. Applied art (writings of the Austrian Museum for Applied Art; 3), Vienna 1952.
• Elisabeth Sturm-Bednarczyk (Ed.): Claudius Innocentius du Paquier - Early Viennese Porcelain 1718 - 1744 . Brandstätter Verlag, Vienna 1994. ISBN 3-85447-536-5 .
• Josef Mentschl:  Du Paquier, Claudius Innocentius. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , pp. 60 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Meredith Chilton (Ed.): Fired by passion - Baroque Viennese porcelain by the Claudius Innocentius du Paquier manufactory . Arnoldsche Art Publ., Stuttgart 2009. ISBN 978-3-89790-308-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Chilton 2009: Fired by passion, pp. 151–152.
2. ↑ For information on the privilege see Chilton 2009: Fired by passion, pp. 150–156.
3. ↑ see Chilton 2009: Fired by passion, pp. 200–203.
4. ↑ Chilton 2009: Fired by passion, pp. 1030-1091.

Web links

• Porcelain room Palais Dubsky on MAK.at