Kronschal from the Munchausen service

Eurasian porcelain project of the Hermitage

This exhibition is exquisite and complex, like the speculative constructions of its curator, State Hermitage researcher Lydia Lyakhova, who believes that the Eurocentrism of Western culture in the 17th-18th centuries was established not least because the West at that time looked with admiration at the East . As evidence, she cites six different groups of early Meissen porcelain. (The oldest porcelain manufactory in Europe was transferred to Meissen in 1710). In the year the Meissen manufactory was founded, the composition of the so-called “hard porcelain” was discovered, the main ingredient of which was white refractory clay - kaolin. This discovery was interpreted as a solution to the innermost secret of the East. After all, porcelain, whose homeland was China, seemed to the Germans and other Europeans to be a materialized symbol of managing the harmony of the four elements of the universe (Earth, Water, Air and Fire). Lydia Lyakhova especially emphasizes in this regard that the glory of discovering the formula for Saxon porcelain is shared by the scientist Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhausen (1651-1708) and the alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger (1682-1719).

Quite a significant amount of time passed before the Meissen manufactory developed its thematic repertoire. Up to this point, she had been imitating fashionable China for quite a long time, and several periods can be found in this imitation. One of them is called “golden Chinese”, because things made in Saxony were painted with gold or silver in Augsburg. The most impressive piece in this part of the exhibition is the “Service with Hunting Scenes” on a silver stand (model by I. Irlinger, painting by Seuler). In subsequent years, paintings were done in the manufactory itself under the direction of Johann Gregorius Heroldt (1696-1775). He himself combined the virtuosity of a graphic artist with an almost impressionistic painterly style. Johann Ehrenfried Stadler (1701-1741) was distinguished by an almost avant-garde interpretation of form and expressive decorativeness. The compositions of Philipp Ernest Schindler the Elder (1695-1765) attracted attention with a detailed storyline and surrealistic details. Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck (1714-1754) was famous for easily combining European and Far Eastern landscape motifs, without hesitation, placing exotic Chinese and European traders side by side, and inventing amazing fairy-tale animals. Herold (c. 1700-1779), who began working in the chinoiserie style, then began to specialize in “harbour scenes” (the fourth group of works). Here, compositions in the spirit of the Little Dutch almost always represented ships being unloaded. All this was sometimes accompanied by floral Chinese decoration by I. Stadler. By the 1730s, the Germans quite confidently imitated not only the general structure of the Chinese, but also individual styles - imari or kakiemon (the fifth and most numerous group of works). The kronchal (dish) from the service of the legendary Baron Munchausen dates back to the late 1730s, perhaps not the most exquisite item in the exhibition, decorated with an image of a goat in lilac.

Ultimately, all efforts to catch up with China ended in the temptation to pass off counterfeits as genuine items. The scam was led by the director of the manufactory, Hoim, who, together with the merchant Leyer, organized the supply of the “Service with a yellow lion” (actually a tiger) or the “Service with a red dragon” to the Paris market. The plan was discovered and ended with Leier's expulsion from the country and Hoym's suicide. The sets were confiscated and began to be used at the Saxon court. Farewell to the Chinese is also reflected in the exhibition, in its last section, which presents the Elizabethan and St. Andrew's sets, made for the St. Petersburg court. You can unexpectedly find oriental flowers on them, belonging to the kakiemon style.

Sergey KUZNETSOV, St. Petersburg