1st MEISSEN Symposium

Color samples and patterns in the collections of the Meissen Porcelain Foundation

Color samples and patterns constitute an important and previously unexplored part of the Meissen Porcelain Foundation collections. My presentation will cover several aspects of this multifaceted collection. The earliest samples stem from the beginning of the 19th century and were prepared at the Albrechtsburg, the Meissen Manufactory's first production site. Examples from the late 19^th century include samples of ground colors dating to the 1870s and 1880s, and Rudolf Hentschel’s experiments with solvent-based colorants (Lösungsfarben) from 1898. Samples from the early 20^th century document the breadth and brilliance of the color palette with examples of overglaze colors developed during the tenure of Max Adolf Pfeiffer as Manufactory Director (1918 - 1933). More recent samples include miniature sketches in which landscape and figure painters tested colors and their mixing ratios. Porcelain painters also prepared color samples labeled by numbers or color designations for their decorations during their training. So called “Finger spreads” (Fingeraufstriche) are quality tests from the manufactory's paint production: each new batch of paint is spread on porcelain by finger and test-fired before it is delivered to the painters.

Looking into the Fürstenberg past with X-Rays

The application of scientific analytical methods to questions of authenticity and dating has become well established in the study of historical porcelain, particularly in relation to Meissen wares. This is not yet the case for the so-called “smaller” manufactories such as Fürstenberg. For several years now, the Museum Schloss Fürstenberg and the Freundeskreis Fürstenberger Porzellan e. V., in collaboration with Cranfield University (UK) and Leiden University (NL), have been conducting a project using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis to gain new insights into Fürstenberg porcelain production in the 18th century. This talk will explore the key questions driving the project, the challenges faced by the research team, and the first results that have already been achieved.

Where are all the White Figures?  Later Decorated Meissen Porcelain

In this talk, Dr. Vanessa Sigalas will present new findings from a groundbreaking research project that applied scientific methods—specifically X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy—to a major private collection of Meissen porcelain figures and groups. This large-scale study, the first of its kind, opens a new chapter in the study of porcelain decoration and raises important questions about authenticity, connoisseurship, as well as collecting practices.

Focusing on recent analysis of the Alan Shimmerman Collection, Dr. Sigalas will discuss what technical investigation can reveal about the dating of porcelain decoration, and what these discoveries mean for our understanding of Meissen production in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

 

Inquiring the red

In the lecture „inquiring the red“ introduces the Kiel based conceptual artist and sculptor Lena Kaapke her long term exhibition project about the color red in ceramics. For ten years, she has been working on a cycle of works, that inquires the ceramic color red. Various works and installations question different properties, conditions, processes, traditions and applications of the ceramic red and are thereby challenging the conventional definition of color that viewers are familiar with from other media. The works challenge us to rethink this definition for ceramics. When the works are seen together, links emerge, that open a sensual space of color and thought by locating ceramic color spatially, temporally and performatively. The ceramic color becomes the occasion for the artistic work and thus a means of contemporary conceptual art. The exploration of red leaded Lena Kaapke to derive a philosophical notation of the conceptual potential of the color red.