Annual Report 2010 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Medal depicting “Le Baron de Boettger”,
portrait of Böttger, c. 1723/25
70 WH Ite GolD CoMeS FRoM SAXonY
The Porzellansammlung holds numerous Böttger porcelain wares:
two tea bowls and one cup with saucers, 1715 – 1720, …
Materials researchers confirm the birthplace
of european hard-paste porcelain
In February 2010, a conference was held in Dresden at
which scientists and porcelain experts of the Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden agreed with materials science
specialists from the Technische Universität Bergakademie
Freiberg (TU Freiberg Mining Academy) and the Dresden­
Rossendorf Research Centre (FZD) on methods for conducting
scientific and art historical investigations and
findings in connection with a recent research report published
in London. This report had identified three vessels
dating from the period around 1680 as being made of
hard­paste porcelain. Ceramics historians had concluded
from this that British manufacturers had developed a
procedure for the production of porcelain even before its
legendary invention in Saxony by Johann Friedrich Böttger.
“The recent findings in England do not necessitate the
rewriting of the history books,” said Dr. Ulrich Pietsch,
Director of the Porzellansammlung of the Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden, after the conference. “The
experiment report written by Johann Friedrich Böttger on
15 January, 1708 is still to be regarded as the hour of birth
of European hard­paste porcelain. We only need to add a
footnote saying that porcelain containing kaolin may
possibly have been produced elsewhere without the
manufacturers realising it, said Ulrich Pietsch. However, it
must first be proven beyond all doubt that the porcelain
… three beakers, c. 1715, …
under investigation really was produced in Vauxhall
(England) and is not a Chinese import that was then decorated
with enamel paints in England, perhaps in the
Vauxhall glassworks. A number of such items are to be
found in Europe. The Dresden Porzellansammlung also
contains such wares.
The white porcelain vases analysed in England are held at
Burghley House in Lincolnshire. Technical investigations
were conducted at Imperial College and the British Museum,
where the vases were subjected to scanning electron
and energy dispersive x­ray spectroscopy, whereupon
they were reclassified not as soft­paste – as was the case
hitherto – but as hard­paste porcelain. On the basis of the
fact that the vases were recorded in a deed of gift in 1683,
the authors concluded that English manufacturers may
have developed such porcelain some years prior to its invention
in Saxony. “At the Dresden­Rossendorf Research
Centre, numerous works of art have already undergone
non­destructive proton beam analysis,” said Dr. Christian
Neelmeijer, a physicist at the Rossendorf Institute of Ion
Beam Physics and Materials Research. In 2009, larger
areas of breakage on authentic Meissen porcelain products
were investigated and analysed. The chemical composition
of these items, in particular with regard to their
aluminium oxide content, was different from the findings
established by the British Museum when testing the
English vases.
Dr. Bernd Ullrich, a scientist at the Institute for Ceramics,
Glass and Building Materials at the TU Bergakademie
Freiberg, added that over the past 20 years he had ana­