Saxon Porcelain Manufactory Dresden
| Saxon Porcelain Manufactory Dresden GmbH
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| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1872 |
| Seat | Freital , Saxony |
| management | Armenak S. Agababyan |
| Number of employees | 11 |
| Branch | porcelain |
| Website | www.dresdner-porzellan.com |
The Sächsische Porzellan-Manufaktur Dresden GmbH is a company for the production of decorative and luxury porcelain in the Freital district of Potschappel .
It is owned by Russian businessman Armenak S. Agababyan. The Sächsische Porzellan-Manufaktur Dresden GmbH exports 80% of its products. The main markets are the Russian, Asian and Arab regions.
history
From the foundation in 1872 to 1945
Carl-Johann Gottlob Thieme (born September 12, 1823 in Niederjahna , † March 18, 1888 in Dresden) was a house painter for porcelain. At the same time, he had been running his own porcelain and antique shop in the center of Dresden since 1864 . He decided to make his own porcelain. He found a suitable plot of land at the gates of the city of Dresden in the industrial village of Potschappel . On September 17, 1872, the Saxon Porcelain Factory Carl Thieme zu Potschappel started operations. From the beginning, white porcelain was not only sold to the Dresden house paintings, but throughout Europe. Likewise, not only self-made, but also purchased white porcelain were painted and sold there.
The flower modeller Carl August Kuntzsch (1855–1920), a son-in-law of Thiemes, played a major role in the company's success. With the "lush flower covering" he created a stylistic feature of Dresden porcelain. After Thiemes death he took over the company and the economic success in 1912 allowed a structural expansion of the production buildings, which have remained unchanged to this day.
The world wars and the global economic crisis reduced exports and the number of employees fell from 300 in 1914 to below 70 in 1932.
From 1945 to 1989
After 1945 the old owners were pushed out of the company. Since the family had not been Kuntzsch Nazi, was Emil Kuntzsch of the East German state organs economic criminals prosecuted. The state participation in the manufactory was gradually expanded. From 1972 the company traded as “VEB Sächsische Porzellan-Manufaktur Dresden; Headquarters Freital ". With that the nationalization was completed. Outside the GDR, the popularity of Dresden porcelain rose again into the 1980s. The legal prosecution of imitators and forgers in the 1970s was helpful. At that time, the Munich Higher Regional Court ruled in favor of the Saxon Porcelain Manufactory Dresden that only it was allowed to use the name Dresden Porcelain . At the end of the 1980s the number of employees was around 180.
From 1990 until today
After German reunification , the world market for decorative and luxury porcelain experienced a major upheaval in the 1990s, with owners also changing frequently. The porcelain factory moved from public property to the trust of the trust . From then on it passed into the hands of a French investor group in 1991. After its bankruptcy, it was sold in 1993 to the Dresden IPV group of the art patron Jürgen Wegener.
After their bankruptcy, it was taken over by Gunther Seifert and Klaus-Peter Arnold in 1998 as part of a management buy-out . In 2002 the Saxon Porcelain Manufactory still had 19 permanent employees and was again insolvent. It was bought by Geschwister Hillebrand GmbH in 2005. This ended its engagement in 2008. Since then, the Russian entrepreneur Armenak S. Agababyan has been the sole owner. In 2010 there were 20 employees. Between March and October 2013, Mr. Agababyan temporarily ceased business operations. The long-time managing director Gunther Seifert left the company.
The street in front of the factory premises, which was expanded to become the Freital bypass in 2002, was named “ Carl-Thieme-Straße ” in memory of the founder of the porcelain factory .
style
Today's Dresden porcelain is characterized by the lush flower coverings, the various breakthroughs, the opulent decorative paintings and the rich gold decoration. The preferred design language ranges from Baroque to Rococo and Classicism to Biedermeier . Popular items are cans, baskets, figurines, potpourri vases and candlesticks.
Today the porcelain manufactory can draw on a decor fund of hundreds of different decors. In 1995 there was still a stock of around 12,400 different models. These models are still stored in an outbuilding to this day. Due to decades of incorrect prioritization by the company management, this outbuilding is in a ruinous condition. First and foremost, it is the moisture penetrating through the destroyed roof that decomposes the plastered models. Since 2014 it has been assumed that over 60 percent of the model pool can now be considered lost.
Artist and Manufactory
The Saxon Porcelain Manufactory not only employed its own modelers and painters to develop new shapes and decors. She has also made frequent use of external art savvy. In 1900, there was cooperation with professors and graduates of the Dresden School of Applied Arts. From 1985 onwards, it was members of the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art in Halle who created new designs. Since 1993, the Dresden Porcelain Art Association has acted as an interface between the art world and the business world of the manufactory.
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China brands
The manufactory's brands are numerous and very different from one another. They can no longer be completely documented. This is not only due to war losses, but mainly due to the great flood of the Wiederitz in 1957, when the entire company archive in the basement was destroyed.
Soil marks
Between 1902 and 1926 alone, the company registered 32 different brands, 8 of them only for the German market.
As a rule, the marks are applied in blue under the glaze. However, they also appear as overglaze marks in blue, iron red and gold. The first stamp was the T over a fish. The crossed S and P have been used since 1901. On August 21, 1902, the entwined S and P were registered as a trademark above the word Dresden.
Embossing marks
Large, unwieldy pieces were marked on the outside with an embossed floor mark. The community brand of the Dresden porcelain paintings Klemm, Donath and Hamann, a stylized Kurhut , is occasionally stamped on tableware from the first half of the 20th century . Letters and numbers were also embossed here and there, which marked certain mass offsets.
The mold number was by no means consistently used. Fixed rules according to which the pieces were given the respective shape number are not known. Old pieces have these numbers in italics. The regular stamping of the mold numbers was not started until after 1950. Behind it is a letter (rarely two) for the bossier . Who is behind the abbreviations is recorded in a list with the raw operations manager.
Between 1984 and 1997, a letter was stamped in front of the mold number to indicate the year of manufacture. "A" stands for 1984, "B" stands for 1985, etc. After 1991 there was a change from "H" directly to "K" for 1992. Then it continued up to the "P" for 1997.
Painter's marks
One or more numbers written in overglaze colors may appear under the company brand. Behind it are the painters involved in the painting, which are recorded in lists by the painting manager. Only in exceptional cases were painters allowed to sign their paintings directly in the picture.
Sponsorship
The Saxon Porcelain Manufactory Dresden has been sponsoring the "Dresden Porcelain Cup" as part of the Dresden Chess Festival since 1996 .
literature
- Ekkehardt Kraemer (ed.): Saxon-Thuringian manufactory porcelain. Glass ceramic. State-owned foreign trade company of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1985; 3rd expanded edition 1987, pp. 8-13.
- Klaus-Peter Arnold: Dresden Porcelain - History of a Manufactory. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1996, ISBN 90-5705-005-6 .
- Klaus-Peter Arnold: Fragile Heroes - Porcelain Soldiers from the Dresden Manufactory. Freital 2000, ISBN 3-9805314-3-0 .
- Ludwig Danckert: Handbook of European porcelain. Prestel Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-7913-3281-3
- Erika Eschebach and Holger Starke (eds.): Dresden porcelain. Myth – Representation – Inspiration Catalog for the exhibition in the Dresden City Museum 2012, ISBN 978-3-941843-13-4
Web links
- Company website
- private website with pictures of the porcelain
- private website with pictures and videos of the company
Individual evidence
- ^ Higher Regional Court of Munich, judgment of July 10, 1975, file number 6 U 5307/74.
- ↑ "see Olaf Stoy in his opening speech for the exhibition 140 Years of Dresden Porcelain Art " Weblog Literata - Art and Literature in Europe. Retrieved June 3, 2012.
- ↑ a b Dresden manufactory with a new owner. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. May 14, 1993, No. 111, p. 17, Economy.
- ↑ Klaus-Peter Arnold: Zerbrechliche Helden - Porcelain soldiers of the Dresden manufactory. P. 10.
- ↑ The future of the Dresden porcelain factory secured. Press release from July 8, 2005 from White & Case Insolvenz GbR. Retrieved June 3, 2012.
- ↑ Freital porcelain should remain intact. In: Saxon newspaper. Local edition Freital, December 13, 2010, Monday talk.
- ↑ How the porcelain is supposed to survive In: Sächsische Zeitung. Local edition Dippoldiswalde, April 9, 2013, p. 17; Porcelain manufactory produces on the back burner In: Sächsische Zeitung. Local edition Freital, October 14, 2013.
- ↑ Porcelain artists have their heads full of worries In: Sächsische Zeitung. Local edition Freital, May 11, 2013, p. 7.
- ↑ From the silent death of a treasure In: Sächsische Zeitung. Local edition Freital, January 30, 2015.
- ^ Klaus-Peter Arnold: Dresden Porcelain - History of a Manufactory , p. 98.
- ↑ "Robert Kempinski wins Porcelain Cup" website chessbase. Retrieved June 3, 2012.
Coordinates: 51 ° 0 ′ 41.2 " N , 13 ° 39 ′ 26.6" E