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In 1717, the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, Augustus the Strong, made a rather unusual deal. He gave the King of Prussia 600 of his soldiers. In return, he received neither weapons, nor land, and not even gold. He
Explore why porcelain remains the finest tableware, its history, technology, and cultural significance from 18th-century Europe to today.
Key Takeaways
- Porcelain's unique material properties made it highly prized and a symbol of status in Europe.
- European porcelain production began with alchemical experimentation and led to the creation of hard-paste porcelain.
- Porcelain differs significantly from other ceramics in composition, firing temperature, and physical characteristics.
- The value of porcelain today includes material quality, craftsmanship, design, and historical legacy.
- Understanding porcelain's history and technology helps appreciate why it remains the preferred fine tableware.
What the video covers
- In 1717, Augustus the Strong traded soldiers for Chinese porcelain, highlighting its immense value and status symbol in Europe.
- Porcelain was historically prized for its unique properties: thinness, durability, whiteness, and slight translucency, unlike other ceramics.
- The video explains the difference between porcelain and other ceramics like terracotta, majolica, and faience.
- Hard-paste porcelain, originally from China, is made from kaolin and fired at very high temperatures, creating a dense, glassy, low-porosity material.
- Augustus the Strong’s court alchemist, Johann Friedrich Böttger, helped develop the first European hard-paste porcelain in 1708.
- Porcelain was considered 'white gold' due to its rarity, beauty, and technological complexity in Europe.
- The video emphasizes porcelain as not just tableware but a combination of technology, craftsmanship, and art.
- There is a distinction between hard-paste and soft-paste porcelain, with the latter being an early European attempt to replicate Chinese porcelain.
- The historical and cultural significance of porcelain as a status symbol has diminished but its craftsmanship and material qualities remain valued.
- Future parts will cover major porcelain manufactories and practical advice on choosing quality porcelain today.
Chapters
- 00:00The Unusual Porcelain Trade of 1717
- 02:09The Magic of Chinese Porcelain in 15th Century Europe
- 04:20Personal Story: Porcelain vs Ceramic Confusion
- 06:25Differences Between Faience and Porcelain
- 08:42Soft-Paste vs Hard-Paste Porcelain
- 10:57Porcelain as Technology, Craftsmanship, and Art
- 13:11Porcelain’s Status and Value Over Time
- 15:43Preview of Future Topics on Porcelain Manufactories
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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received 151 pieces of Chinese porcelain. These were vases and other porcelain tableware. And this is no historical anecdote; the deal really did take place. Among these items were enormous Chinese vases, which have since been known as "dragoon vases."
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You must admit, it's hard to imagine such a deal today. Augustus was a rather unique person in this regard. He himself called his passion for porcelain something of a disease. "Maladie de porcelaine," or "porcelain sickness." His collection eventually
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grew to many thousands of items. A logical question arises: what was it about a porcelain plate that made European kings go absolutely crazy over it? And something else is also interesting. Three hundred years have passed.
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Porcelain is no longer a secret Chinese technology. Today, you can buy a plate for 500 rubles. Or you can pay 100,000 for one. And on the outside, they sometimes don't look all that different. So, what are we paying for? For the
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material, the handiwork, the design, 300 years of history, or just for the pretty boxes? My name is Artem Ogonyan.
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I am the art director of the Interyer Bureau studio. And today we will talk about high-quality tableware, or more specifically, exclusively about porcelain. There will be a separate video on glass and crystal. First, we'll figure out why porcelain was once
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called "white gold," how it differs from other types of ceramics, and then we'll discuss three manufactories that perfectly represent three completely different porcelain traditions. It will be informative and incredibly interesting. Porcelain appeared in China centuries before Europeans learned how to produce it or even knew
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about it. The main distinction of true hard-paste porcelain is its very dense, white, non-porous body, obtained from kaolin and other mineral components at very high temperatures. It is simultaneously thin, durable, white, and at a certain thickness, can even be
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slightly translucent. To 15th-century Europe, this looked practically like magic. Chinese porcelain was imported in large quantities, but Europeans did not understand how to produce it. They spent decades trying to unravel the formula. And this is where our Augustus
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the Strong appears again. He didn't just want to buy Chinese porcelain; he wanted to make his own. Furthermore, at the same time, he was also interested in another material: gold. A young alchemist named Johann Friedrich Böttger ended up at his court,
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claiming he could turn base metals into gold. And that was a rather unfortunate professional self-introduction, because Augustus the Strong essentially said: "Well, wonderful, then make gold, and for me alone." So, to ensure the talented specialist didn't accidentally
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change employers, Böttger was effectively held under guard. Needless to say, he did not succeed in making gold. But together with the scientist Tschirnhaus, he continued to experiment with minerals, clays, and high temperatures. And in 1708, they managed to create genuine European hard-paste
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porcelain. A rare case where an alchemist didn't make gold, yet the patron was still satisfied in the end.
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Two years later, Augustus founded a manufactory, and Europe finally had its own porcelain. From this, we can draw our first conclusion. Historically, fine tableware has never been just a container for food. It is technology, craftsmanship, and even art. And for a
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long time, it was also one of the most recognizable ways to show status. Today, the status component has become less important, but everything else has not disappeared. Before talking about expensive, high-quality porcelain and manufactories, we need to understand
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what this material actually is. Because a plate can be terracotta, porcelain, earthenware, or majolica. And outwardly, some of them can look quite similar today. However, technologically, they are completely different things.
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Let’s start with the most general aspect. I remember when I was about 10 or 12 years old, my mom and I went to a dishware store. Mom wanted to buy a tea set. I liked one porcelain cup. I was
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turning it in my hands and said, "Mom, I like this ceramic, we should get it." The salesperson standing nearby was so offended that I used the word "ceramic" that he snatched the cup from my hands, saying, "This is not ceramic, this is
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porcelain." Well, basically, a jerk. Ceramics is a huge category of items made from clay and other mineral materials that have been shaped and then fired. That is, a terracotta flower pot and a Meissen porcelain cup are formally both ceramics. True, in
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about the same way that a bicycle and a Rolls-Royce are both transport. But still, it is all ceramics. This is where the differences begin. The simplest version is terracotta. The name itself literally translates from Italian as "baked earth." It is usually
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reddish or brownish clay that has been fired at a relatively low temperature. "Low temperature"—it's low for ceramics, anyway. You shouldn't stick your hands in the kiln. For a human, this temperature is still quite high.
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Terracotta is fired at temperatures between 900 and 1,000 degrees Celsius. The material ends up being thick-walled and porous. It absorbs water unless it is additionally protected with glaze.
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For centuries, they made pots, jugs, architectural decor, or, for example, roof tiles out of terracotta. And it is also used for tableware, even to this day. But it is a completely different material compared to porcelain. The next category is majolica. The
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terminology here is a bit confusing because in different eras and different countries, this word was used for several similar technologies. But to simplify greatly, classic European majolica is essentially terracotta that is covered in glaze and then painted on
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top. Majolica can be incredibly decorative. Bright colors, ornaments, hand-painting, but the base material under the glaze remains relatively coarse and porous. Next is faience. And this is often confused with porcelain.
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Faience is also made not from red or brown clay, but from a light ceramic mass and covered with glaze. It can look very neat, can be white, can have beautiful decor, but if you look at the shard together with the color, the
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difference becomes more obvious. Faience has thick walls and is more porous compared to porcelain. Porcelain is significantly denser, resonant, and can be translucent if the walls are thin enough. This, by the way, is one of the easiest ways to explain the
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difference. Take a good, thin porcelain cup and hold it up to the light. The light will pass through the wall a little. This, of course, won't happen with a faience cup, but the main difference is not in the appearance, it
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is in the technology. Real porcelain is fired at a very high temperature. During firing, the mass turns into a dense, glassy body, so quality porcelain has very low porosity. It is hard, dense, white, and at the same time allows for making much thinner
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items. And it was precisely this combination of properties that once amazed Europeans so much. Imagine the 15th century, most European ceramics are quite thick and opaque. And suddenly a cup arrives from China: white, thin, almost weightless. If you
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put a candle inside, the walls glow a little. It is easy to understand why it seemed to Europeans that it was almost some unknown mineral. This is, in fact, where the famous expression "white gold" came from. But even within porcelain
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itself, there is an important division. There is hard-paste porcelain and soft-paste porcelain. Although the word "soft" is a bit misleading. It doesn't mean the cup can be bent. The difference is, again, technological.
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Hard-paste porcelain. This is the type of porcelain that was historically produced in China. In its classic version, it is based on kaolin and mineral components, w
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hard-paste porcelain is from 1,400 to 1,460 ° C. It was the technology for this type of porcelain that was successfully reproduced in Saxony in the early 18th century, after which the Meissen brand itself appeared.
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Hard-paste porcelain is usually very white, resonant, dense, and mechanically very strong, which allows for making very thin-walled items. If you gently tap a high-quality porcelain cup with your finger, it produces a fairly high, clear sound. I do not
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recommend, however, turning this into a full-scale test in a store like Ginori. Soft-paste porcelain appeared in Europe earlier, when Europeans did not yet know the real Chinese recipe. They saw the end result and tried to reproduce it. They got something similar. They
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used various mixtures of clay, quartz, and glassy components. Such porcelain was fired at a slightly lower temperature, namely 1,300–1,350 ° C.
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It was beautiful, white, and sometimes even possessed a very beautiful, warm, almost creamy whiteness. But technologically, it was a different material. It is less hard, more sensitive to damage, much easier to scratch, and its production was quite finicky. An interesting historical
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situation arises here. For several decades, Europeans made very expensive soft-paste porcelain, trying to copy China. And then, finally, they acquired the technology for true hard-paste porcelain. And the rules of the game changed. At the same time, soft-paste porcelain did not disappear. French
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manufactories, for example, Sèvres, brought it to an incredible artistic level. Hard-paste porcelain is more durable and closer to the Chinese original, while soft-paste porcelain can produce a beautiful surface, especially with depth of color, and is historically associated with some
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outstanding manufactories. But still, in my opinion, all else being equal, hard-paste porcelain is much better.
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There is also bone china. Its composition includes bone ash. Thanks to this, it is possible to obtain very thin, light, and yet sufficiently durable items. We will return to this technology when we talk about one of the manufactories. And we will start
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with a brand without which European porcelain, in its modern sense, might not have existed at all. Meissen. The year 1710. The first European hard-paste porcelain manufactory. If you want to buy not just a good plate, but practically a piece of the history
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of European decorative art, Meissen is one of the most obvious options. Moreover, the brand has another wonderful story. They tried to keep the secret of porcelain as carefully as possible, but industrial espionage in the 18th century worked just as well as
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it does in the modern world. The secret gradually leaked out. Competitors appeared, and Meissen needed a way to distinguish original items from others.
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Thus, in 1722, the famous crossed swords appeared. They became the mark of the manufactory and have been used on its porcelain for more than 300 years. That means the logo on your plate could be older than some countries. Meissen today can be very
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different, from almost museum-quality historical designs to quite modern white tableware. But personally, I would choose this brand for someone who truly values history, handmade craftsmanship, collectibility, and the feeling that an object continues a tradition that is nearly 300 years old.
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If you just need very good white plates , there are significantly more rational ways to spend your money. At the same time, of course, you need to understand that this is incredibly high quality, which has not just remained the same,
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but has not diminished at all over all this time. This is one of the highest qualities of porcelain, in principle, of all that exist. By the way, this is one of my three favorite porcelain brands. The next brand is Ginori 1735.
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And this is a completely different aesthetic. The manufactory near Florence was founded in 1735 by Marquis Carlo Ginori, meaning the brand is nearly 300 years old today. But the most interesting thing in its history for me happened in the 20th century. In
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1923, Gio Ponti became the artistic director of Ginori. The very same Gio Ponti, one of Italy's leading architects and designers of the 20th century, future creator of the Pirelli skyscraper in Milan and a vast array of objects now considered classics of
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Italian design. He directed the artistic side of Ginori for 10 years, and in 1925, the manufactory's work, along with Ponti himself, won the Grand Prix at the Paris exhibition. The same exhibition, if you remember, that we talked about in our Art Deco video.
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This is not just some conservative manufactory that has been painting the same flower for 300 years. The brand has always had a very strong connection to Italian product design. That is why I would choose Ginori whenever the tableware needs to be part of the
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table's composition. Color, pattern, gold, and unusual graphics. Their Oriente Italiano collection is a very characteristic example. Saturated colors, a historical floral motif, and gold trim. If the interior is eclectic, Parisian, neoclassical, or bright and modern, Ginori can look magnificent.
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But if you are a confirmed minimalist and even a book on your coffee table gives you a stroke, this is probably not your brand. Now, Russia: LFZ. And here I want to dwell in more detail, because, in my opinion, we know the
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history of LFZ surprisingly poorly and don't value it enough. Today, the enterprise's official name is again the Imperial Porcelain Factory, but for a huge number of people, it still remains LFZ, that is, the Lomonosov Leningrad Porcelain Factory. And its history is
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truly incredible. It is literally a historical thriller, because one factory managed to make porcelain for the Russian emperors, then revolutionary propaganda, then Suprematism, then helped camouflage warships during the war, and after the war, created arguably the most recognizable Soviet porcelain set.
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Let’s start from the beginning. The factory appeared in St. Petersburg in 1744 under Empress Elizabeth Petrovna.
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Initially, it was called the Neva Porcelain Manufactory. I didn't mention this founding date just for nothing, because it was the third manufactory in Europe. Moreover, it all begins almost like an industrial detective story.
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Christoph Conrad Hunger was invited to Russia, claiming he knew the secret of porcelain. But it was discovered quite quickly that the specialist, to put it mildly, had overestimated his own capabilities. It was impossible to obtain any decent porcelain. And then
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the work was handed over to a young Russian mining engineer, Dmitry Vinogradov. And Vinogradov actually solved the problem. He didn't just produce Russian hard-paste porcelain.
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He developed the composition of the paste: glazes, pigments, gold powder for decoration, furnace design, and molding technologies. Well, in short, he established the entire production cycle. The first high-quality products were successfully produced as early as 1747. Meaning Russia didn't just buy a
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ready-made foreign recipe, but effectively created its own technological school in a very short period. And this is important, because today LFZ is sometimes perceived as something simple and not of very good quality. Actually, first of all, there are currently only 12 such
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manufactories in the world, and this is one of them. And secondly, this factory is older than the United States itself.
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Artem, why is it so important that they created their own recipe instead of, for instance, buying a European one?
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I’ll explain. The thing is, the quality of porcelain is largely determined by the quality of the raw materials. In other words, they have their own location and their own extraction of the main component— kaolin—like in Limoges. Why are there
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so many manufactories there? Well, there are many of them because of the specific kaolin found in Limoges. But we didn't have raw materials of that quality. So, in fact, what Vinogradov did is unique, because we managed to create a great manufactory with very
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high-quality porcelain, while the technology allowed for using materials that weren't the best in the world.
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Therefore, it is truly colossal and unique that they developed their own porcelain production technology. In 1765, under Catherine II, the manufactory was named the Imperial Porcelain Factory. Huge palace orders began: state dinner services, vases, and items for the imperial court. And
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from then on, the factory essentially became a chronicle of Russian history. Only it was written not on paper, but on porcelain. Then the revolution occurred. In 1918, the enterprise was nationalized. The imperial court was no more. It would seem that porcelain, as
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a symbol of monarchical luxury, should have been completely unnecessary to the new government. But almost the opposite happened. Porcelain was turned into a tool of propaganda. And, by the way, I’m not giving that word a negative connotation here. On the contrary, the
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famous "agitational porcelain" appeared . Slogans, red stars, the hammer and sickle. In short, revolutionary themes.
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Sergey Chekhonin, Natalia Danko, and Nikolai Suetin worked at the factory. Kustodiev, Petrov-Vodkin, and Malevich are all linked to the factory's history . And in the 1920s, suprematist porcelain appeared here as well. Just think about the contrast itself. In the
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same factory where, just a few decades earlier, they produced porcelain for emperors, revolutionary symbols were now appearing on the plates. In short, the material was the same, but the political system was completely different. In 1925, the factory was
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named after Mikhail Lomonosov. By the way, not without reason. Along with Vinogradov, he participated in developing the porcelain recipe. And so , the name that would later become familiar appeared. The Lomonosov Leningrad Porcelain Factory, or LFZ.
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But what follows is even more interesting. The Great Patriotic War. Most of the equipment and the museum collection were evacuated to Irbit. It is a city in the Sverdlovsk region.
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Production was reoriented there, including to technical items for military equipment, while some workers remained in besieged Leningrad. As long as there were fuel reserves, the factory produced tableware for hospitals. But there is one absolutely incredible detail. Three warships were
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stationed on the Neva River in front of the factory, and the porcelain factory’s artists helped camouflage them using porcelain paints. In my opinion, this is one of those facts that is simply impossible to invent. A porcelain factory, a blockade, warships
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, and artists painting military vessels instead of cups. But if you think that’s all, you’re wrong. Here is another twist. In 1944, for the enterprise's bicentennial, artist Anna Yatskevich created a pattern that almost everyone in Russia knows today.
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The Cobalt Net. A blue geometric pattern with gold accents. She based it on motifs from Empress Elizabeth Petrovna’s own personal dinner set.
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So, a Soviet artist during the war turned to an Imperial porcelain design, and in 1958, the Cobalt Net on the " Tulip" shape won a gold medal at the Brussels World's Fair. This, I believe, is the main strength of the LFZ story.
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Empire, revolution, avant-garde, war, Soviet modernism. And all of this passes through a single manufactory.
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Later, another technological story emerges. In the late 1960s, the factory developed its own technology for thin-walled bone china. And for the first time in the USSR, they launched it into industrial production. So, in the Soviet Union, this factory was not
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just preserved and its technologies not lost, but those technologies were actually improved. As a result, the quality of the porcelain became even better, surpassing many European manufactories, while the cost dropped significantly, decreasing several times over. In 2005, the enterprise regained
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its historical name: the Imperial Porcelain Factory. And I think the IPF is highly underrated today as a serious porcelain manufactory and a brand with a rich history, rather than just a maker of souvenirs from St. Petersburg.
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By the way, I will note once more so that you understand the greatness of this manufactory. It is the third oldest in Europe and currently one of only twelve in the world. But you need to choose your collection carefully.
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I’ll explain what that means in a moment. Their assortment is enormous. They simultaneously offer very traditional imperial decor, the Cobalt Net, Soviet design, replicas of the historical avant-garde, and modern pieces. And quite a lot of decorative gift items. And that's far from
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everything. I wouldn't put everything from there in my home. But that is normal. I don’t know any manufactory with a three-hundred-year history where I would want to buy the entire catalog.
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If you need historical Russian porcelain, the choice is obvious. If you like the Russian avant-garde, there are truly museum-level pieces here. If you want a recognizable classic, then go for the Cobalt Net. But if you need a modern interior look, I would
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primarily look at the more concise white forms. Bone china and less decorative collections. In other words, I wouldn’t choose the IPF out of patriotic principle, although that is also a valid reason, but because the enterprise truly has its own unique
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school and history. It's just that for some reason we know this history much worse than the history of Meissen or Ginori. Now for the second reason for caution. Today, the quality of the IPZ is much worse than it was in the
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Russian Empire, and especially worse compared to the Soviet period. This does not mean that the quality is low in terms of general standards. On one hand, the quality is certainly lower than the brands I listed in this video.
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For example, we have a tea set in the office. These are tea and coffee cups from the IPZ. Even though we don't wash these cups in the dishwasher but by hand, the paint and especially the gilding wear off in literally a year or
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two. But at the same time, the quality of today's IPZ is incomparably higher than the praised and widely loved Villeroy&Boch brand. And higher than most fashion brands like Gucci, Versace , or Hermès. And yes, I know it should
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be pronounced "Hermès," but I'm mispronouncing the name dismissively like that on purpose. Therefore, in my view, the IPZ at the very least deserves attention, and at best, it offers very good value for money. At the very least, if you are eyeing
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Villeroy or well-known fashion brands, it's better to choose IPZ. And this is where the first part ends, because we have already figured out the most important things. What exactly is porcelain? Why was it literally traded for people 300 years ago? How does
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porcelain differ from terracotta, majolica, and faience? How does hard-paste porcelain differ from soft-paste? And why can two externally similar white plates have completely different values? And we looked at three very different porcelain traditions. Meissen is effectively the beginning of European hard-paste
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porcelain. Ginori is the Italian perspective, where porcelain becomes part of a larger object design. And our Imperial Porcelain Factory. A completely incredible history, from Elizabeth through the revolution, Malevich, and the blockade, all the way to the Cobalt Net. But all of this
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mainly answers the question of where good porcelain came from. And in the second part, there will be a perhaps more practical question. What from this is worth buying today? We will talk about Bernardaud, Haviland, Royal Copenhagen, and Rosenthal. We'll figure
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out why I am very cautious about porcelain from brands like Gucci, Versace, Hermès, and other fashion brands, and why, at the same time, I myself want tableware from another fashion house. And most importantly, we will talk about how to choose good
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porcelain in general. White or decorative? Do you need to buy the entire collection of a set? What should you look for in a store and what is really worth paying for? So, let's continue in the second part. In the
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meantime, write in the comments which of the three brands we talked about today you prefer: Meissen, Ginori, or the IPZ? I am genuinely interested to see which brand will win. And by the way, thank you for your comments. I
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read them all and try to answer everyone. It happened, it happened. Super. Then let's check the sound, take a break, and then do the second part.
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All right. Artyom, why do you have a negative view of Hermès? I don't have a negative view of Hermès . I just don't like it when things are given a value that they don't actually possess. I mean, there are these
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fashion brands, and I don't quite understand why they cost so much and why people pay so much for them. I mean , the markup isn't just 20, 30, or even 100%; the markup is, I don't know, 10 times the cost. You have to understand
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that not a single fashion brand is actually a manufacturer. They all outsource their production. Uh, there is one other fashion brand, or rather, one fashion brand that I do like. We'll talk about it in the second part, but
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basically all fashion brands just buy products from others and add an incredible markup. I’m not saying Hermès is bad. I just don't really understand it when there's such a massive markup, and for that same money , you could get not just better quality
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, but the best in the world. I don't know, Meissen is probably one of the two best manufacturers that exist in the world today. Incredible quality, combined with incredibly expensive labor and incredibly expensive materials. There is another brand that
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competes with Meissen. They simply use the best materials available in the world. Hermès is okay, but generally, there's no real quality there. There is no collector's value there, and there won't be. And as for artistic value, I don't know, they have one series, their
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children's tableware. It's interesting. Mainly, these brands just plaster their logos everywhere. It’s like a jacket with "Gucci, Gucci, Gucci" written all over it, right? You look at it and it’s like...well, it’s just the same spirit as Hermès, Versace, or
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Roberto Cavalli. That’s why I don’t think poorly of them. I just don’t put them in the same category. Besides that, I don't really understand when people buy Hermès or, I don't know, Ralph Lauren, when they could buy LFZ
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instead. It costs 5–10 times less, and the quality—well, it’s night and day. LFZ is a real manufacturer that makes very cool porcelain, yes, not the same as before. For instance, even in Tsarist Russia, LFZ was considered such fine porcelain that it
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was prestigious for European houses in places like Britain or France to have LFZ in their collections. It was truly on a level no worse than other brands.
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And this cup you have on the stand is good. Well, if we use the principles I mentioned, in principle, yes, this is bone china, meaning it's thin. At these dimensions, that is difficult. It is difficult to make a durable cup with
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these dimensions and this thickness, which means this is high-quality porcelain. It is translucent; if you look at it against the light, it actually glows. So, it's top-notch.
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It's resonant; you can tap it with your finger. But when we talk about a product, we are not just talking about the porcelain; we are talking about the whole product as a complex. What is a cup? A cup is the quality of the
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material, the porcelain, and the quality of the technology. That is at a very serious level here. The second thing is design. Design is split into two categories. There is the visual component and, strangely enough, ergonomics. Visually, I like it. It is
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quite a beautiful shape. I like this kind of shape. It is wide and low. The cup, well, for example, I have poor fine motor skills. I bump into everything, everything drops. In short, my hands grow from the wrong place.
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Like, yes, the shape is beautiful. Furthermore, this collection is dedicated to constructivism. I relate to that, but at the same time, the ergonomics are a nightmare. It’s just awful. It's uncomfortable to hold, even though it's light. While it's empty,
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it's fine, but let's pour in at least 100 grams of water, and my finger feels like it's breaking. I fill the cup, especially if it's tea, hot tea, right?
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Well, it's a nightmare. It drops, you burn yourself, you have to hold it with both hands. Since the porcelain is thin , that seems like a plus. It heats up so much that it burns. While I'm walking down from the second floor of
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our office to the courtyard to sit on a bench, drink tea, and have a smoke. I keep tossing it from hand to hand because it burns. And this is a big problem, actually, with goods in general, when for some reason there is
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a divide: either a craftsman or a manufacturer makes it, so it's technological, or a person who thinks about ergonomics does it, or an artist —not a designer—does it. It's beautiful, but to fill it, look at it, turn it over in your hands, well, it's
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clear why it's difficult. Creating even a seemingly simple product—it's not an iPhone or a Mercedes, it's a cup— still requires technology, an artistic component, how we decorate it, how we sell it, marketing, and ergonomics. And taking all of that into account is
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extremely difficult. So, when we talk about some big, serious brands, well, they have that, again, it's not IFZ, it’s IFZ production, but it's made by another company, a young one. I really like them. I like their design, I like
Speaker A
their concept. Everything is super, but they are young. When we take someone like Meissen, those guys have been doing it for 300 years. In those 300 years, they’ve learned how to do it well. So here, you either need a genius
Speaker A
architect to create it for them, like Ponti did when he came to Ginori, but that’s a true genius, coming in for a short period and making it super. Or it requires colossal tradition and time.
Speaker A
And so we cut off the excess, remove the defects, and weed out the unsuccessful shapes. As a result, we get something like IFZ, say, the tulip shape. Well, okay. So, is this cup good ? Well, yes and no. In general, not bad
Speaker A
. At least it’s real bone china. That’s cool. Something like that. Well then, break time. Are you willing to endure the inconvenience or burning your hands, just to enjoy how it looks?
Speaker A
Well, first of all, like in that joke, the hedgehogs cried and pricked themselves, but they kept loving the cactus. There. And secondly, it’s a gift, and it’s valuable to me, so I use it because it’s a gift from
Speaker A
someone close to me who thought of me, knows what I like, maybe what I’d want, and nailed my preferences.
Speaker A
Therefore, yes, using it, I remember that person, and it’s pleasant for me to use. Although, truthfully, it does burn my hands. I think that someday I’ll break it, and the torture will probably end. But no, the person gave
Speaker A
me two of them, one as a spare. Knowing I’m clumsy, I know for sure that this cup will break eventually.
Topics:porcelaintablewareceramicshard-paste porcelainAugustus the StrongJohann Friedrich BöttgerChinese porcelainEuropean porcelain historycraftsmanshipwhite gold
