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

Kornélia HAJTÓ: Zsolnay Pyrogranite: Tradition and Fact

eluding tiles for Matthias Church and the reconstruction of Vajdahunyad Castle. It supplied Terrakotta pieces for the MÁV building designed by Ödön Lechner and Gyula Pártos. Imre Steindl designed the Máriafalva altar in Zsolnay ceramics, another successful collaboration between the two artists.

The great volume of orders being fulfilled by his company did not inhibit Vilmos in his efforts to develop and improve his products. He was aided in his passionate quest for raw materials by the geologist Jakab Mattyasovszky, husband of his daughter Teréz. Mattyasovszky devoted his life to the success of the family and the company. Teréz wrote of these times:

“Our father devoted all of his efforts to improve the clays for his various products. He carried out countless experiments and was always enquiring into new materials. One of his notebooks showed that for his trials, he mixed soil from Pécsvárad, Tettye, Bilics, Lapis, Váralja, Rév, Csúcsa, Dubrinics, Tapolca, Lugos, Tolcsva and Nagymihály with clay from Zagor and Beregszász in different compositions and proportions. When he received a new clay sample that seemed useful, he always asked his son- in-law to look for the source, “because we have to buy everything that is satisfactory. ”®

Clay was not always of uniform quality even from a single site, and deliveries from quarries known to have useful clay had to be processed accordingly. Teréz wrote at one point:

“Good refractory material has been brought from Rév, Sonkoly os and Élesd

in Bihar County, hut we got the best together with kaolin from Blanskó, where it fills the gaps between the iron ore. Old Garasi selected out this clay by hand for years, breaking it up with a hammer in an attic area in the lower yard. The second-rate red grained clay went to make the best refractory bricks. ”9

By 1885, the factory extended over a site of five holds (1 hold -1.5 acres). Power was supplied by two large steam engines, one of fifty horse power and one of twelve. Beside the machine house were the clay refining chambers, providing more than 180 kinds of raw material for production. There were nine large and fifteen small kilns on the site, and over seven hundred workers.

In late 1885, Vilmos informed his friend Steindl that the material newly developed for architectural ceramics was henceforth to be called Steindl ware. Steindl warmly conveyed his gratitude to Vilmos in January 1886. The name did not stick, however, and the commercial name Pyrogranite soon came into use.

“Our father put his full energy into perfecting this durable, ore-hard and frost- resistant material. [...] When Imre Steindl wanted to make the ornaments for Parliament out of his “godson”, the minister asked for the suitability of this unknown material to be tested by Professor Wartha. ”‘°

This marked the start (in September 1891) of Vilmos’s lifelong friendship with Vince Wartha (1844-1914). Wartha 1864 was a chartered “technical chemist”. He had worked as an assistant lecturer and privat- dozent in Zurich, and published widely on his analytic research. On his return to Hun121