Question 1

Do Crimson, Cobalt and Black work together?

Accepted Answer

Yes — most technically sophisticated Meissen split-complementary: Cobalt medium vivid Meissen-underglaze and Black pure absolute Schwarzlot are the most specifically Meissen and the most dramatically graphically contrasting cool-dark pair, Crimson passionate Kakiemon-chinoiserie-figural the most polychrome-enamel and the most Rococo-decorated warm. Meissen chinoiserie: Crimson figural passionate, Cobalt underglaze vivid, Black Schwarzlot pure absolute.

Question 2

What is Meissen porcelain and why is it the first European hard-paste?

Accepted Answer

Meissen porcelain (Meissner Porzellan — the first European hard-paste porcelain — established 1710 at the Albrechtsburg castle in Meissen, Saxony — the most historically significant single event in the history of European ceramics — and the most immediately commercially important technological achievement of the early 18th century) was produced through the most dramatic and the most consequential ceramic technology breakthrough in European history: the independent rediscovery of the hard-paste porcelain formula that China had kept secret for approximately 1,000 years. The quest for porcelain: 'white gold' — the European obsession with Chinese hard-paste porcelain (the most translucent, the most brilliantly white, and the most perfectly resonant ceramic in the world — so far superior to European earthenware and tin-glazed majolica that European rulers were spending the equivalent of millions of modern dollars to import it from China) — motivated the most sustained and the most secretive research programme in the history of European chemistry. The discovery: Johann Friedrich Böttger (1682-1719 — the most important single figure in European porcelain history — an alchemist who had promised Augustus the Strong that he could transmute base metals into gold — and who, under pressure from Augustus to deliver on this promise — was imprisoned in the Albrechtsburg castle in Meissen with the physicist Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and ordered to solve the porcelain problem instead — achieving the first European hard-paste porcelain in approximately 1708-1709 — the most consequential result of the most desperate alchemical research program in European history). The formula: the Meissen hard-paste formula — kaolin (China clay — Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄ — the most essential ingredient of true hard-paste porcelain — imported to Meissen from the Colditz kaolin deposit — later from the more extensive Seilitz deposit) + feldspar (the flux — potassium or sodium aluminum silicate) + quartz (the filler) — fired at approximately 1300-1380°C — producing the most perfectly white, the most vitrified, and the most brilliantly translucent ceramic in European history.

Question 3

Who was Augustus the Strong and his role in Meissen?

Accepted Answer

Augustus II the Strong (Elector of Saxony 1694-1733 and King of Poland 1697-1706, 1709-1733 — born May 12, 1670, Dresden — died February 1, 1733, Warsaw — one of the most extravagant and the most culturally significant monarchs of the Baroque period) was the most important single patron of the Meissen porcelain manufactory — the creator of the most extraordinary porcelain collection in European history and the most crucial political supporter of the most important ceramic research program in European history. The porcelain obsession: Augustus the Strong is the most frequently cited historical example of the European 'porcelain mania' (Porzellankrankheit — 'porcelain sickness' — a term used by contemporaries to describe the most extreme European aristocratic obsession with collecting Chinese and Japanese porcelain). His collection: Augustus assembled approximately 35,000 pieces of Chinese, Japanese, and European porcelain — the largest such collection in Europe in the early 18th century — including the most spectacular examples of Chinese Kangxi and Yongzheng dynasty blue-and-white porcelain, the most elaborate Japanese Kakiemon and Imari polychrome porcelain, and ultimately the most complete collection of early Meissen production. The Dresden Porcelain Collection: housed in the Zwinger Palace complex (the most spectacular Baroque palace in Germany — built 1710-1728 — the Porzellansammlung — Porcelain Collection — in the Zwinger's Long Gallery contains one of the most important and the most extensively documented porcelain collections in the world). The most famous trade: Augustus is credited with the most extraordinary single commercial transaction in porcelain history — allegedly trading an entire regiment of Prussian cavalry soldiers (600 dragoons — the 'Potsdam Giants' — tall soldiers recruited specifically for parade duty by Frederick I of Prussia) to the King of Prussia in exchange for 151 pieces of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain vases — the most immediate and the most dramatic illustration of the monetary value placed on Chinese porcelain by the European aristocracy.

Question 4

What is the Blue Onion pattern and its global commercial significance?

Accepted Answer

The Blue Onion pattern (Zwiebelmuster — from German: Zwiebel — 'onion' + Muster — 'pattern' — despite depicting pomegranates, peaches, bamboo shoots, chrysanthemums, and a stylized Chinese rock — not onions — but misidentified by the 18th-century Saxon workers who saw the pomegranate as an 'onion') was designed at Meissen in approximately 1739 — attributed to the chief painter Johann Joachim Kaendler or his colleague Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck — the most immediately commercially successful and the most widely produced Meissen pattern in the history of the manufactory. Design sources: the Blue Onion was directly inspired by: (1) Chinese Jingdezhen blue-and-white export porcelain — particularly the 'peach and bamboo' and 'pomegranate' patterns popular in the Chinese export market of the 1680s-1730s; (2) Japanese Imari blue-and-white patterns; (3) The specific Meissen interpretation — which introduced the most immediately European Rococo compositional conventions to the Chinese-Japanese botanical motifs — creating the most specifically European and the most commercially distinctive version of the blue-and-white botanical pattern. Commercial significance: the Blue Onion is the most widely produced and the most extensively copied Meissen pattern in the history of European ceramics — since the mid-18th century, virtually every European porcelain manufacturer (Villeroy and Boch — Germany; Herend — Hungary; Royal Copenhagen — Denmark; Hutschenreuther — Germany; and approximately 50 other manufacturers in at least 15 countries) has produced their own version of the Blue Onion pattern, making it the most globally widely distributed and the most immediately internationally recognizable ceramic pattern in the history of European manufacture. Meissen's legal position: Meissen has never succeeded in legally restricting other manufacturers from using the Blue Onion pattern — only the specific Meissen crossed-swords trademark is legally protected — making the Blue Onion the most widely 'open-source' luxury ceramic design in history.

Question 5

What proportion creates the most Meissen chinoiserie quality?

Accepted Answer

Black dominant (45%) as the pure absolute Schwarzlot-iron-oxide ceramic dark anchor; Cobalt at 35% as the medium vivid Meissen-underglaze-blue cool secondary; Crimson at 20% as the passionate Kakiemon-figural warm jewel. Black's dominance creates the Meissen chinoiserie quality — the vast, pure, absolutely opaque black of the most elaborate Meissen Schwarzlot decoration is the single most dramatically graphically contrasting and the most technically sophisticated element in the Meissen palette — the specific iron-oxide black that can outline the most delicate chinoiserie figures with the most razor-sharp precision, fill the most completely opaque background areas with the most uniformly dense black, and simultaneously appear next to the most vivid polychrome enamel colors with the most dramatic and the most aesthetically satisfying contrast; Cobalt's vivid underglaze provides the most internationally recognizable and the most specifically Meissen cool secondary; and Crimson's passionate Kakiemon figural provides the most polychrome-enamel and the most Rococo-decorated warm accent — the vivid crimson of the Meissen chinoiserie scenes being the most immediately festive and the most characteristic element of the most celebrated polychrome Meissen decoration.

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