The Royal Porcelain Factory of Copenhagen

Products from this producer offered by Prague Art & Design

The first attempts at producing porcelain in the Danish city of Copenhagen reach as far back as to 1731. They, however, were not too successful, mainly due to the lack of deposits of appropriate clay. It was only under the activity of F. H. Müller and Richter in 1773 when the first hard Copenhagen porcelain was made of kaolin imported from Limoges. In 1775, local deposits were discovered in Bornhlm which also resulted in the first successes. In 1779, the porcelain factory became a royal property and has been since listed under the title “Kongelige Danske Porcelains Fabrik”. It mainly employed German artists and its production thus did not much differ from that of the contemporary German manufactures. The period between 1790 and 1802 witnessed the appearance of the famous “Flora-Danica-Service” whose painted decoration was entrusted to Johann Christoph Bayer, summoned from Nuremberg. During the first decades of its existence, the factory mainly focused on producing dishware while figural sculpture was only secondary. The main artistic boom arrived only at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1885 in Paris, during his travels throughout European countries, the artistic director of the manufacture became familiar with Japanese inspirations and further developed them in a specific way. His success was crowned by the Grand Prix, awarded at the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris.

The porcelain decoration is dominated by painting which earned a leading European position to the manufacture. It mainly bears motifs of flowers, landscapes and animals, executed in restrained grey, blue and green tones.