Enfilade

From The French Porcelain Society:

Angela Wallwitz | Ars Naturalis-Ars Artificialis: Boettger’s Invention of Red Jasper Porcelain in the Wake of the Early Enlightenment
FPS Living Room Lecture, Online, Sunday, 29 May 2022, 18.00 (BST)

Angela Wallwitz draws on her expertise in cataloguing ceramics as an art dealer, combined with her research skills as an independent scholar specialised in Meissen ware. In this lecture, she will delve into the subject of Plaue stoneware. We hope you can join us!

FPS members will receive an email invitation with instructions on how to join the online lecture. Please contact us for more details on FPSenquiries@gmail.com.

To achieve the artificial manufacture of gold, silver, and precious stone was the aim of man to re-create God’s creations since Renaissance times. The invention of Boettger stoneware, red jasper porcelain, and white porcelain played a significant historic role in this context. Ernst Zimmermann was the first to understand this after having spent years of research in the archives in Dresden and Meissen before they suffered losses and destruction during both world wars. However, his publication of 1908, Erfindung und Frühzeit des Meissner Porzellans, with 271 pages of small print and 721 invaluable footnotes, remains a hidden treasure for all non-German speakers. Researching a unique red jasper porcelain garniture of five apothecary vases, Angela Wallwitz discovered Ernst Zimmermann’s fascinating interpretations of the facts and the difference between stoneware made in Dresden from those manufactured in Meissen and the identity of a glassmaker, Boettger engraver and co-founder of the Prussian rival manufactory in Plaue. The garniture, published as an early diplomatic gift, was most probably Boettger’s gift to Augustus the Strong for his famous Royal apothecary in the Residenz of Dresden. This lecture, intends to serve as the guideline to illustrate the role of ceramics as ars naturalis and ars artificialis.