Bolesławiec pottery
There is also a unique clay slip associated with the Bolesławiec supply base, the application of which results in a glossy, brown surface.
[4] Once Silesia had come under the control of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1742, the Prussian government took an active interest in promoting the pottery industry and intervened in favor of increased production.
Standing some 2.5 meters (8.2 ft) tall, this double-handled storage jar was placed in the town square as a symbol of the technical prowess of Bunzlauer potters.
After the annexation of the city by the Kingdom of Prussia, under the auspices of the Prussian kings, who encouraged the growth of the Silesian ceramic industry, Bunzlauer ware achieved a widespread recognition and was shipped throughout the states of Germany.
Bunzlauer ware's popularity increased even more after 1828, when the potter Johann Gottlieb Altmann produced a feldspar substitute for the dangerous lead glaze that previously had been used on the interior of the vessels.
The 19th-century heyday for Bunzlauer ceramics came in the 1870s, when close to 20 different family-run pottery shops were in operation in Bunzlau itself, and some 35 in the neighboring town of Naumburg am Queis (Nowogrodziec).
By the end of the 19th century, however, changes in lifestyle, increasing urbanization, and growing competition from new products such as enameled metalware and glass began to constrict sales.
Faced with this threat, the remaining Bunzlauer potters, while continuing to meet an agrarian demand for traditional undecorated brown slip vessels, introduced new lines of smaller wares intended for display in the parlors and dining rooms of middle-class consumers.
In their survival effort, the local artisans were aided by professors at the government-sponsored Keramische Fachschule (Ceramic Technical Training School), which had been established in Bunzlau in 1898 under the leadership of the Berlin ceramicist Wilhelm Pukall (1860–1936).
In Art Deco, the naturalistic curves of Jugendstil gave way to geometric patterns and the streamlined aerodynamics appropriate to the machine age and the concept of mass production.
The Suprematist style of pure, geometric abstraction had developed in Russia and was introduced into the famous Bauhaus Design School in Dessau in the 1920s.
It was probably from the Bauhaus that this modernist aesthetic was transmitted initially to the Ceramic Technical Training in Bunzlau and then into the design repertoire of those decorating Bunzlauer pottery in the years between the two world wars.
The Bunzlauer potteries, however, continued to use the ever-popular peacock's eye motif on their spongeware production; they simply added new design lines offering an alternative to a new generation of buyer.
[9] Ceramic specialist Professor Tadeusz Szafran was dispatched to oversee the reconstruction of the potteries which also received guidance from the Wrocław Academy of Fine Arts.
It was Wolanin who largely was responsible for establishing the designs typifying today's production; this is based upon the continued use of the popular peacock's eye motif.
[20] The Cepelia operation moved into greatly enlarged and modernized quarters in 1989 in keeping with increasing demand throughout Europe, the United States and Australia.
He initiated changes that helped reform technical abilities and new work methods, but also supported innovative new ideas and forms of creative expression.
[4] Although most of Lower Silesia's ceramic workshops and studios were destroyed by the Nazi Germans during World War II, and the entire German minority population of the town and surrounding province were removed during the retransfer of the territory from Germany to Poland in 1945, the Polish authorities and people made a huge effort to revive the ancient work of Polish pottery making.
This permitted the cooperative to revive a high standard of artistic achievement and enabled funding and the influence of talented potters in Poland and throughout Europe.
[4] The Bolesławiec pottery that is most recognizable today is the white or cream colored ceramic with dark blue, green, yellow, brown, and sometimes red or purple motifs.
Currently, most of the original pottery that comes from Polish Bolesławiec is produced by the CPLiA cooperative and the many artists that work under it, either in factories or smaller studios.
Many of the individual artists do their own work, and there is also a large crafts movement that still produces the traditional heavy brown and white stoneware.
[4] Although Bolesławiec pottery has become more popular in the United States in the past few years, it is still largely a regional product and is known primarily in Poland, Germany and Eastern Europe.
It falls in a very different category from fine English and Asian china and pottery that demands high prices in today's marketplace.
[23][24] In 2017, the Polish presidential couple Andrzej Duda and Agata Kornhauser-Duda presented a Bolesławiec tea set as a gift to William, Prince of Wales and Catherine, Duchess of Cornwall during their royal trip to Poland and Germany.
