Katona Imre: Az első magyar porcelángyár (Telkibánya) (Borsodi Kismonográfiák 24. Miskolc, 1986)

FOUNDATION AND OPERATION OF EARTHENWARE AND PORCELAIN FACTORY AT TELKIBÁNYA (Summary) Our oldest porcelain factory was established at Telkibánya presently belonging to county Borsod, formerly to county Abauj. Though, porcelain had already been manufactured at the time of Napoleon's war - or perhaps earlier than this - its large scale manufacture was carried out at Telkibánya at the first time. Thus, it is obvious that the history and development of the factory have for long attracted the researchers' and specialists' attention of the Hungarian pottery's past. However, the first porcelain factory has apparently been described in a slightly romantic manner in the studies published so far, according to which the production difficulties were never known by the factory, but on the contrary, duke Ferdinand Bretzheim - this aristocrat-patriot coming here from abroad - became enthusiastic about the ideas of the reform era, disregarding the expectable financial difficulties, launched the long wished porcelain manufacture on a hilly, romantic clearing of his land estate. But in reality the situation of the porcelain factory at Telkibánya was not at all as marvellous as this, and it soon encountered serious troubles similarly to the factory of civil foundation in Kassa and Miskolc, as well as the earthenware factory founded by an aristocrat at Hollóháza. The factory managed to get over the difficulties only by strictly keeping to the diagnose based on the errors analyzed and finding the right head for the factory in the person of János Mayer with proper seriousness and thorough knowledge who was little known but the most interesting and the best trained personality of the Hungarian earthenware and porcelain manufacture. János Mayer came just as well from Moravia as the Hüttners. First he went to Pápa and worked at the earthenware and porcelain works there in the period (18371839) when it was hired by Mór Fischer, the later factory „founder" at Herend. He left Pápa for Herend where he worked as a mass master at the factory wrestling with the initial difficulties. At Herend he made mostly earthenware mass for pipe making, as shown in the baking test notes of 1841 and 1842 of the Porcelain Works. Some of his remaining pieces of earthenware show that his activity at Herend did not vanish without leaving a trace behind. In 1842, he went to Telkibánya where he was first a manager and then a hirer. At his arrival at Telkibánya the circumstances stabilized

: earthenware and porcelainware was manufactured half-and-half. Already at the time of Mayer's activity at Herend Czech kaolin (from Zettlitz) was used and its right proportion was studied for years. Mayer probably brought these experiences of his to Telkibánya and this was the reason why he had no troubles when he had to turn to the Czech kaolin to improve quality. In places, not only the basic material was Czech, but also the forms and decorations of Mayer's earthenware resembled the Czech porcelain even though if it was not so over-decorated as that. Since the middle of the 1850-s, following Mayer, the factory began to quickly decline under the run of subsequent hirers. The situation of the factory could stabilize only with the appearance of Gyula Fiedler in 1862. Fiedler started vigorous constructions and modernized not only the factory itself and equipped it with uptodate machinery, but also built up a new crushing mill at Olsva, behind the Czech hill. Assessing the possibilities and after a careful consideration, Fiedler decided to give up the expensive porcelain manufacture based almost entirely on foreign starting material and changed over to earthenware production merely. 85