The Arcanum: The Extraordinary True Story of the Invention of European Porcelain

Tells the story of how the West learned to make porcelain, focusing on Bottger, who discovered the arcanum, or secret formula; and Herold and Kandler, artists at the new Meissen Porcelain Manufacture

Who would have thought that the story of porcelain would be such a rousing tale of wealth, intrigue and outrageous greed and gluttony? In an all-but-abandoned German mountaintop castle called Albrechtsburg in the town of Meissen, a brilliant 18th-century apothecary and alchemist by the name of Johann Frederick Bottger discovered the secret for making porcelain, which was the next best thing to gold at the time in Europe. Like many other alchemists of his day, Bottger had once untruthfully claimed to have found the secret formula for turning base metals into gold. But for King Augustus of Saxony, who?smelling fortune?promptly imprisoned the young scientist, the arcanum for porcelain, or china, would have to suffice. Gleeson's lively account of how Meissen became the West's first porcelain center follows a colorful cast of characters: the lascivious Augustus; two rival decorative artists, Johann Gregor Herod and Johann Joachim Kaendler, who applied their skills as diligently against each other as they did in creating precious porcelain objects; and goldsmith Christo Konrad Hunger, a "hard-bitten profiteer" who would "happily stoop to intimidation, threats, and all manner of chicanery if it would help to fill his purse." Greed?for money, fame, porcelain or power?seems to have motivated everyone associated with Meissen, including the author's apparent favorite, "the unfortunate Bottger," whose youthful boasting and actual genius in the laboratory made it all possible. Though somewhat hastily wrapped up, this is delightful historical narrative. Major ad/ promo.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The often excitingand always absorbingstory of the European development of the formula for making fine porcelain and the growth of the Meissen works that led the way. The ``arcanum'' usually refers to the age-old quest for a recipe for turning base metals into gold. Gleeson uses it appropriately here not only because porcelain became known as ``white gold'' in 18th-century Europe, but also because Johann Frederick Bttger, the alchemist who first created European porcelain, had originally set out to make gold. Having rashly claimedand ``demonstrated''that he could do so, Bttger was imprisoned in 1701 by the greedy Augustus II, king of Poland and elector of Saxony. Augustus, whose appetite for women and riches was legendary, held Bttger for decades; while his gold-making experiments failed repeatedly, he was given the task of discovering the ancient Chinese secret of making porcelain. Bttger eventually did make fine white porcelain from gray clay, prompting his ``ironic testimony'' above his laboratory door: ``God . . . has made a potter from a gold-maker.'' Never granted his freedom, Bttger was made head of the king's porcelain factory at Meissen. Gleeson traces the history and development of porcelain artistry from there by following the careers of the mean-spirited Johann Gregor Herold, an artist whose inventive colors and patterns set the standard, and the sculptor Johann Joachim Kaendler, whose fine work in 1730s Dresden would bring about a bitter rivalry with Herold. The sublime results of their competitive work can still be viewed in the museums of Dresden and Meissen. Gleeson does a marvelous job of relating court intrigue, decadence, and chicanery; but her descriptions of 2,200-piece dinner services and the lavish banquets on tables decorated by porcelain finery, including an eight-foot-high model of the Piazza Navona with running rosewater, steal the show. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The story of Johann Friedrich Bottger, imprisoned by a greedy king after discovering how to make porcelain. A No. 1 London Times best seller.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The birthplace of European porcelain, Dresden and environs attract throngs transfixed by the translucent exquisiteness of that luxury ceramic. So fine a thing must conceal a fine story, which emerges wonderfully in Gleeson's charming account of the (re)invention of porcelain, which the Chinese had made for centuries. The few examples that reached Europe unbroken stoked the lust of Augustus II of Saxony, a roueof Brobdingnagian appetites. His extravagance was so boundless he ordered a porcelain palace to be built (it was not completed), but that's getting ahead of the story. Gleeson's hero is Johann Frederick Bx9a ttger, an alchemist who came to Augustus' avaricious attention in 1701. The gold Augustus wanted never materialized, despite Bx9a ttger's promises, putting him in danger of execution as a fraud. Skillfully dramatizing Bx9a ttger's desperation, Gleeson describes how he instead developed a secret method--the arcanum--for firing and glazing porcelain. Its gold-like generation of wealth pleased Augustus, but surrounding sovereigns were jealous, making the arcanum the prize of subterfuges and Frederick the Great's wars. Pure reading pleasure. Gilbert Taylor