THE ROLE OF FRENCH PRESSED GLASS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MEISSEN PORCELAIN MANUFACTORY

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to reveal the history of Europe's first porcelain manufactory from a little-known aspect and show how non-standard solutions helped Meissen manufactory stay afloat, despite wars and crises. The article examines the history of the manufactory's turn to works of glass art - the allied decorative and applied art. The experience of using pressed glass products clearly reflects the high role that technologies, revolutionary for their time, played in design at the manufactory and its history, and how the histories of the two directions of decorative and applied art, which usually do not intersect, are closely connected. The scientific novelty lies in the interdisciplinary consideration of the issue using rare entries from catalogues of glass and Meissen porcelain products. As a result, it was determined that although the Meissen manufactory management tried to minimise the amount of evidence about the period of copying glass products, this period, nevertheless, turned out to be necessary for the manufactory’s survival in the European porcelain market. Largely owing to craftsmen’s willingness to move away from the usual models of production methods, as well as the use of the latest technologies of the first third of the 19th century, Meissen continued to create world-class porcelain masterpieces in the following years.