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FROM THE HISTORY OF THE PORCELAIN FACTORY PIRKENHAMMER. [A rough translation from German with help from Google Translator.]
If one follows from Karlovy Vary from the road, along the creek Tepl drags picturesque, so you can reach in one and a half hours the friendly village Pirkenhammer behind which the Lamnitz, a stormy mountain stream pours into the Tepl. In the narrow rocky valley through which the Lamnitzbach rushes, is the porcelain factory, which bears the name of the village. In 1803, the merchant and landowner Friedrich Hoecke has founded Buttstedt from the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar this company. Hoecke lit from the beginning aim high. He built two small kilns and fabricated with the help of some skilled workers, which he had brought from Thuringia, low-value dishes and bowls. The deal fell through but not for development. Hoecke, who had reason to fear have nothing to spent money and time, leased the factory after a few years, at the latest in 1806, at the Thuringian merchants Ferdinand and Friedrich Cranz bread houses. As an accountant Fidel List worked. Cranz died in 1807 at the "lazy fever" and was looking for bread houses, leaving many debts the width. Hoecke now ordered a manager Gottlieb angle but seems to have not much done. The factory was threatened with decay. As we were able Hoecke, in 1811 the dilapidated factory by low price to Johann Martin Fischer from Erfurt and Christof Reichenbach for Sale in Pirkenhammer. Martin Fischer was a merchant, while Reichenbach was the technical director of the company and took in the factory anslapartment. - The work was initially in a pitiful state. The reason that it comprised only a narrow strip at the foot of a steep mountain, building and factory facility was poorly received and were designed so stolen that all the iron work was missing. But just a year after the takeover by Fischer and Reichenbach, it looked a lot better. The factory was located in three buildings. In the one, first the village Pirkenhammer located home, the painter and the ovens were housed for Farbeneinbrennen. In about a hundred yards distant second home all other manufacturing plants were set up with the exception of the mass and glaze production, together with the mill at the end of the valley, about three hundred yards from the factory buildings away, was. - The factory prepared her porcelain from Zettlitzer kaolin and feldspar from a reddish brown and a white, quartzose sandstone, both of which occurred just behind the factory. The Zettlitzer earth was slurried by hand, sieved sharp, ground in a water-powered stone mill and very carefully dried. As Crusher a stamp mill was water-powered operation. To prepare the glaze you used a reddish, calcareous china clay from Donawitz at Pirkenhammer. Flat dishes, cups and smaller hollow tubes were rotated off-hand, only the larger cans were turned into forms and trained on the turntable. Burn up and Garbrennen was performed in a two-level round furnace after Berlin system. The capsules were made of reddish clay Gießhübler; they were thin-walled and were performed exemplary. The porcelain colors were baked in muffle furnaces with coal fire. They moved from a Highest color lab technicians called thistle. First, even common species of coffee and panel harness and pipe bowls were produced Thuringian-style. In addition, a significant turnover in the factory made coffee mugs by Saxony and Silesia. She sold the dozen cups, painted with colorful flowers green and red, to 2 Gulden (encashment certificates) and selected fine and better painted the dozen to 3 1/2 Gulden (encashment certificates). The tableware was mainly decorated with blue painting. - Although in the following years crop failure and high prices prevailed, helped the energy, the diligence and efficiency of the factory manager across all difficulties. Quality and quantity of manufacturers increased so that Fischer and Reichenbach unhesitatingly received the formal state power plant on 21 June 1822.
When Martin Fischer had died in 1824, his widow Sophie Friederike to the coming of age of her son Christian with Reichenbach together to run the business. Around this time, explained Stephen of Keeß the porcelain of Pirkenhammer for the best, which was produced in Bohemia. In particular, it is more translucent than that of other factories. In it there was the French porcelain closest, which is why the factory Pirkenhammer abroad could most successfully compete with French goods. 1828-fed Fischer and Reichenbach, the first tradesman products exhibition in Prague with a large number of painted vases and harnesses. In the second exhibition in Prague in 1829 was awarded the bronze medal Pirkenhammer. The evaluation commission praised the purity of the mass, the beauty of the forms and ornaments that "the same beautiful and high gold plating". Johann Gottfried Dingler boasted 1829, the products of Pirkenhammer, including the excellent painting and gilding. In the same year the factory was a privilege to the printing of designs of metal plates on porcelain under glaze and the permit for the installation of a copper printing press after the Viennese medical faculty had on April 28, 1829 a survey report as meaning "that in to this procedure medical considerations no memory takes place. "The factory now led the monochromatic copper pressure as a Dekorierverfahren. A report of the evaluation commission for the Prague Exhibition of 1831 gives news of the former staff of the factory. Then in several new buildings constructed by "the many, busy with the procuring of raw materials individuals not counted" were 36 Dreher, 37 painters, gilders and copper printer, 16 polisher and laborers, with the office staff has a total of 130 persons. The products were mainly sold through the factory defeats to Vienna, Prague, Brno and other cities of the former monarchy. For the rest of the paragraph was "of particular extent in the Italian provinces and abroad. " The quality judgment of the Commission was: "Although were only submitted a few articles and especially the so very popular and inexpensive harnesses with black copper pressure reluctant missed, yet it is known that diversity of the invention, docility in the flavor of the moment, unremitting attention to have these already collected to achieve cheaper prices in competitors products especially endeavored factory to one of the most important in the country, the progress of other countries, coupled with skill in the production and fluency in the use of their products. for but indicate brought to the exhibition splendor harnesses, a high degree of progress to completion. Trefflich succeeded both in terms of form as beauty and purity of the mass and glaze, as on rich gilding and tasteful paintings were of the generated with overcoming the difficulties larger pieces the award-worthy equipped with gilding and painting vases, which together with the other harnesses for new patterns in the modern taste the happy pursuit of the factory according to intelligence and higher art-loving perfection expressed ". 1833 married Johann Christian Gottlieb Fischer, who had now come of age and in 1831 joined the company, the daughter of the late Emma Karoline Württemberg Government Council Johann Friedrich Ludwig von Mieg from Ludwigsburg. Christian Fischer had prepared himself thoroughly for his profession. He was "a clever chemist and excited for all the branches of the natural sciences, particularly botany and geology, praiseworthy had already done in the field of microscopy. " Even the director of the State Sèvres, Bronguiart, visited the factory in 1836, expressed his appreciation for the operation, its director and its brands. The 1835, held in Vienna "first general Austrian Trade Exhibition" on the ground, glaze, paintings, gilding and the tasteful forms of objects were highly praised, the factory took the bronze medal. The fourth exhibition of Czech products in Prague tradesman 1836, the factory employed numerous new patterns: from vases, candlesticks, Dejeuners, bottles, night lamps, writing tools, and more. It seems not to have done so well as before this time. Nevertheless, the assessment of the Commission's second exhibition in Vienna in 1839 was very excited again. The protocol says. "These gentlemen mill owners have raised by the nature of the exhibited pieces the high point of their establishments beyond all doubt the good taste in terms of forms, the purity of the mass, the smoothness of the glaze and even the painting stand out very beneficial from. Herewith the related cheap prices have made it the exhibitors also possible to set in Italy, where such popular French brands mostly out of competition. These reasons the same was awarded the gold medal. "- At the exhibition of 1845 Christian Fischer was a member of Central Hofkommission. The factory, therefore, was out of price competition, which was to be regarded as the highest honor. In 1846 Reichenbach put to rest and sold his share to 110,000 florins to Christian Fischer, who remained until 1852 the sole owner. In that year his daughter Wilhelmine married her cousin Ludwig von Mieg, who was co-owner of the factory. The company was now Fischer & Mieg. Christian Fischer was no longer actively involved since 1853 in the factory, had acquired a porcelain factory in Saxony.
By Christian Fischer and Ludwig von Mieg the development Pirkenhammers received its greatest impetus. Christian Fischer must be addressed as the creator of the technical and aesthetic tradition of Pirkenhammer. With scientific education equipped, gifted with an open view of economic necessity and ways of cultivated taste and inventive spirit uniting, was Christian Fischer for Pirkenhammer the right man at the right time. While his predecessors were trying to achieve by Thuringian models and with Thuringian workers what had already been achieved in other factories in essence, it has Christian Fischer understood to put the company in a new role, work and scope, the brands to issue its own Wertgepräge to train local workers and to train for a higher quality of services. Through him Pirkenhammer received his self-importance and its permanent character in the history of porcelain making, his attachment to the ground on which it stands, with the people who supplies him with the creative forces. - Ludwig von Mieg, in turn, gave the company a powerful business a boost. He knew how to take advantage of the economy and the revenue to increase by a multiple of the former. He recognized that the increase in value of the products is mainly based on the decorative finishing, and therefore addressed especially his attention to the improvement of ornamental harnesses and the raising of the painting. Under his leadership, the factory came to an economic boom like never heretofore, and the brands gained recognition and reputation in the world market. Christian Fischer was the intense, Ludwig von Mieg the extensive acting driving force in the development history Pirkenhammers. The occurrence of these two men and the fortunate succession of their work owes Pirkenhammer its heyday in the 19th century.
Special contributions to the promotion of the art of painting in Pirkenhammer earned the Parisian painter A. Carrier, who worked for Pirkenhammer from 1868 to the early 20th century. He built the factory in 1874, a studio in Paris, and worked there for many years in the service Carrier Pirkenhammers, with countless designs and ideas the decorative form and shape refinement fruitful. Versatile recognition was given to the benefits of the porcelain factory Pirkenhammer. As examples, here the most important awards are listed, which were awarded the manufactory on foreign world fairs: Paris 1855: Medaille
11. Klasse, Mid-1918, the factory was Pirkenhammer the Group "Epiag" incorporated, which also includes porcelain factories in Elbogen, Dallwitz, Aich and Altrohlau. In the following years, there were many difficulties, as they generally brought about the post-war years in the industry. But the current administration has succeeded with commendable support of Epiag Director General Ing Leo Benedict, to overcome all obstacles and inhibitions. Taking care of the highest quality iferstes operating law. The taste of training products, their languages, craft working through their formal and decorative treatment is on full. What has consumed valuable to workers of the war, has been replaced as planned by careful education of the young talent. Today Pirkenhammer is more than ever at the service of its good tradition, the work of his inner strength is also in the new era and, filled with a new spirit will retain the meaning in the future, it has acquired a 125-year development history of the factory . |
