In 2018 the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory celebrates its 300th anniversary. Having obtained the charter to produce porcelain in 1718, it is considered the second oldest porcelain manufactory in Europe after Meissen.


The volume accompanying the exhibition in the MAK - Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art in Vienna will now reopen the history of the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory, which closed in 1864, where major works such as the porcelain chamber from the Palais Dubsky (Dubsky Room) and the Zwettl centrepiece are presented in light of new findings. With numerous illustrations of leading pieces from the MAK's collection and international loans, the catalogue attests to the significance that Viennese porcelain has enjoyed as an outstanding cultural achievement of Austria since the Baroque era.







Contents: Christoph Thun-Hohenstein: Viennese Porcelain as a Resonance; Rainald Franz: Three Centuries of Viennese Porcelain and Three Centennials; Rainald Franz & Michael Macek: The Dubsky Chamber and the MAK. An 18th-Century Aristocratic Porcelain Room and its History; Andreas Gamerith: At a Loss for Words. The Zwettl Centerpiece and its Origins; Rainald Franz: The Viennese Porcelain Set for the Duke of Wellington; Errol Manners: The Travels of an Arcanist, Joseph Jakob Ringler; Johannes Wieninger: Exemplars from East Asia; Elisabeth Schmuttermeier: Porcelain versus Silver; Michael Macek: The Hulfswerk von Engelhardtszell 1798-1809 and its Impact beyond 1809; Waltraud Neuwirth: Johann Poysel, First Modelleur of the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory. His 1858 Journey to Limoges, Paris, Sevres, Wallerfangen, and Nymphenburg; Kathrin Pokorny-Nagel & Ulrike Scholda: The Museum as the Administrator of an Estate. The Closure of the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory and Transfer of Its Holdings to the Imperial Royal Austrian Museum of Art and Industry; Leonhard Weidinger: The Viennese Porcelain Scene. The Museum and Private Collections; Rainald Franz: Paul Wittgenstein's Porcelain Room; A. Philipp Revertera: Etcetera: Random Thoughts on Collecting (and) Viennese Porcelain; Rainald Franz & Michael Macek: History of the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory 1718-1864 in its Cultural and Political Context; A Visual History of the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory: Claudius Innocentius Du Paquier (1718-1744), Imperial Porcelain Manufactory: Phase 1 (1744-1749), Imperial Porcelain Manufactory: Phase 2 (1750-1783), Conrad Soergel von Sorgenthal (1784-1805), Matthias Niedermayer (1805-1827), Benjamin von Scholz (1827-1833), Andreas Baumgartner (1833-1842), Franz von Leithner (1842-1855), Alexander Loewe (1856-1862), Alois Auer von Welsbach (1862-1864), Augarten Porcelain Manufactory (since 1923-24).







Published to accompany an exhibition at MAK - Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art, Vienna, 16 May-23 September 2018.







Text in English and German