Marked “Dresden”
Dresden porcelain is often described as Rococco revival style.
Rococco comes from the French word rocaille meaning rock work or grotto work, and refers to artificial grottoes used in French gardens and decorated with irregularly shaped stones and seashells.
Popular during the renaissance, rococo experienced a revival during the 19th century, and influenced almost every aspect of interior design.
Dresden decorators were the first and most successful to employ the style on dinnerware decorated with elaborate and fanciful designs using a profusion of foliage, flowers, fruits, shells and scrolls.
Between 1855 and 1944, Dresden housed over 200 painting shops; but the dresden style is always associated with wares bearing the blue crown mark first registered by Richard Klemm, Donath & Co., Oswald Lorenz, and Adolph Hamann in 1883 and the type of wares they produced.
The style they employed used a mixture of Meissen and Vienna flower and figure painting.
Later, other decorators employed the Crown and Dresden mark, and names like Franziska Hirsch, Ambrosius Lamm, Carl Thieme and Helena Wolfsohn became associated with dresden porcelain.
The Original Four Dresden Companies where :
Karl Richard Klemm, located in Striesen and founded in 1869. The Klemm Dresden crown was registrered in the RWZR under number 24.
Donath & Co, located in the Wachsbleichstrasse 25 and founded in 1872. The Donath Dresden crown was registered in the RWZR under number 25.
Oswald Lorenz, located in Dresden as a commission agent. The Lorenz Dresden crown was registered in the RWZR under number 26.
Adolf Hamman, located in the Serrestrasse 8 and founded in 1866. The Hamman Dresden crown was registered in the RWZR under number 27
All the above studios were decorating porcelain in the meissen or vienna style; and marking their pieces with the sam dresden crown mark. The dresden collector will find it quite impossible to identify the exact origin of wares produced at this time.
After a few years though, each of these studios did register their own specific marks at the RWZR and it became easier to identify indivual studios.
