Prékopa Ágnes (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 30. (Budapest, 2016)

Kornélia HAJTÓ: Zsolnay Pyrogranite: Tradition and Fact

“The Szeged keramit and brick company makes red-brown keramit of iron- containing clay and uses it to make Mettlach-like tiles. The keramit factory in Kassa makes tiles of light-coloured stoneware, also similar to Mettlach tiles. Also in this category is Pyrogranite, made by Zsolnay. This is stoneware fired hard to shrinking point. Zsolnay uses this to make wall and paving tiles of diverse colours and terracottas that resemble sandstone. Zsolnay presented Pyrogranite at the ceramics exhibition of 1891, and it has found major application on the façade of the Museum of Applied Arts. We hope that its application will spread further, because as facing material, and especially as sandstone-like terracotta, it can replace carved stone, which it can even surpass in terms of durability. (...) In addition to Pyrogranite terracotta, Zsolnay exhibited ordinary terracottas and architectural majolica. All of these materials have found application in the public buildings of our capital city. The entrances to the underground railway, the Museum of Applied Arts and the high altar of the Inner-City Church, Zsol- nay’s latest works. ”

This passage compounds the terminological confusion. Petrik puts Pyrogranite together with “tile ware” and stoneware,24 implying that it was fired as dense ceramic.

“Stoneware is used to make ordinary jugs, but also for the finest works of art. Zsolnay also made such stoneware products for a while. This is hard material, with conchoidal fracture, does not admit water and does not stick to the tongue. ”2>

Zsolnay did indeed start making stoneware in 1884. Apart from the tiles already mentioned, it made sewage pipes and chimneys for buildings from this material. The details of these products are recorded in its books entitled Kőgyurma-áruk [Stoneware]. (Fig. 4) Chimney number 35 belongs to the Museum of Applied Arts, and that was about all the stoneware that Zsolnay did supply to the museum. Only one of the original chimneys survives, in the attic of the museum. Its material is extremely hard and dense, with water absorbency of only 1.8% ! In a report on the properties of stoneware products, János Grofcsik (1890— 1977), professor of chemical engineering in the Department of Silicate Chemistry in the Veszprém Chemical University, gave the water absorption as 0.75-3%.26

The company displayed its stoneware at the 1886 National General Exhibition:

“... only this year, Zsolnay of Pécs set up a new clay pipe factory to the highest technical standard, capable of mass production. It will displace foreign goods from the country. Zsolnay displayed its new products - pipes, chimneys, etc. - at the exhibition and is now opening a warehouse in Budapest where the construction community may obtain every manner of construction material. ”27

In the following article, Petrik distinguishes between porous materials - terracotta - and dense fired earthenware:

“Original and good terracotta is made only by Zsolnay in Pécs, the only company which works on an industrial scale and continuously employs competent artists. In addition to ordinary terracotta, Zsolnay also exhibited novel col128