Meissen porcelain

Discover Giles County Historical Society article from the Virginian Leader, July 8, 2009:

The first exhibit that many people see upon entering the Historical Society’s Museum are the large porcelain urns displayed directly in front of them. While this exhibit might seem unusual for Giles County, these urns are part of a collection of Meissen porcelain left to the Historical Society by their owner, Fowler Johnston. Mr. Johnston was Andrew Johnston’s great grandson and the reason that the Giles County Historical Society has the extensive Complex that it does today. The Meissen porcelain is beautiful, but it becomes even more spectacular when visitors look at it more closely and understand the amount of time and hand work that went into each piece.

Meissen porcelain has been made in Germany since 1710. Each piece is hand-formed and hand-painted in a time-consuming process that creates exquisitely formed pieces. The process begins with a white porcelain paste made from kaolin, a white clay. When an object, such as an urn, is made for the first time, a full-size model is created of the object so that plaster molds can be made from the model. Some symmetrical objects, like an urn, are created on a potter’s wheel with the mold being used to provide external contours that match the model. Other objects, such as the urn’s handles, are cast by pouring liquefied porcelain paste into the mold, pressing the two halves of the mold together, and waiting for it to cure. Smaller details are formed by hand and attached with the porcelain paste.

The porcelain is biscuit-fired at over 1,600 degrees to strengthen the piece. Underglaze designs are painted with cobalt blue or chromium green on the biscuit-fired piece, the object is dipped in glaze, then glost-fired at over 2,600 degrees which creates the intense white of the Meissen porcelain. Overglaze painting then completes the design on the object. Artists us models and references are used to ensure that the art on each object matches the others of its type. Once completed, the object is decoration-fired at over 1,600 degrees to fuse the paint to the glaze.