The Arcanum (17 page)

Augustus had seen these displays, and the arrival in Dresden of the dragoon vases had fired him with the aim of creating an
even more glorious setting for them. It was his extraordinary ambition, therefore, to devise not just a room but an entire
palace made of and filled with porcelain. This, the ultimate fantasy showcase of the undisputed porcelain king of Europe,
would far surpass the grandest porcelain rooms of Prussia and provide a suitable eye-catching backdrop for the products of
his own porcelain factory.

In 1717, therefore, he bought the so-called Dutch Palace from his chief minister Count von Fleming. The elegant Baroque palace
was situated in the Neustadt district of Dresden on the banks of the Elbe, with stunning views toward Dresden and the fertile
hills beyond. Augustus immediately began extending the palace with the help of a panel of leading architects including Matthäus
Daniel Pöpplemann, who turned the riverside gardens into a version of the Grand Canal in Venice, even designing a small harbor
where gondolas could tie up.

On the day of the marriage celebrations, the princess arrived at the Dutch Palace at three in the afternoon. She was greeted
by the king, who ushered her inside to show off the palace's amazing porcelain-garnished interiors, which already boasted
over 25,000 individual pieces. One wonders whether the princess was quite as riveted by the interminable collages of plates
and vases as her father-in-law, but even if she stifled a discreet yawn during her tour of the king's collection she can hardly
have failed to be roused by what happened next.

With suitable pomp, the royal party walked slowly to the riverside gardens and settled themselves on sumptuously padded throne
seats on a stage beneath a red velvet canopy trimmed with gold. The rest of the royal household sat on green benches, the
lower orders probably stood. The evening began with music and drama. As an orchestra hidden behind rosebushes struck up, seven
eunuchs, each dressed as a different planet, appeared before the assembled audience in clouds of smoke and announced a series
of festivals during the following days. Tonight, a Sunday, was to be the Festival of the Sun.

After these lengthy proclamations the royal party drifted indoors to enjoy a banquet laid out at long tables behind which
Augustus's priceless porcelain glittered in the candlelight. As evening fell the guests rose and stood by the palace windows
overlooking the river where Sol, the eunuch dressed as the sun, had announced that the highlight of the evening, a pyrotechnic
display, would take place. The fireworks, representing Jason's battle for the Golden Fleece, emerged from a specially constructed
temple, framed by ranks of trumpeters and drummers who played a rousing musical accompaniment. Meanwhile eight hundred musketeers
and two infantry regiments blasted cannon salutes as innumerable flares and endless fountainlike rockets climbed into the
night sky, illuminating the ranks of gondolas bridging the river. Augustus must have reflected that the event incontestably
proved both the dynastic importance of his son's wedding and his own porcellaneous supremacy. Even by his standards it was
an unforgettable night.

Arriving at the Meissen factory a few months after Augustus's flamboyant display, the young Johann Gregor Herold immediately
began trying to ingratiate himself with the directorate and key courtiers in the hope that they would ignore his somewhat
dubious record—a fugitive painter from Vienna can hardly have appeared a hugely attractive potential employee—and give him
work.

The Meissen factory was still a hotbed of conspiracy, scheming and infighting and Herold soon realized that in such a place
success depended as much on powerful allies as on formidable talents. He emerged as a master in the art of sycophancy, social
climbing and shrewd negotiation. But beneath a politely deferential, enthusiastic facade, Herold concealed a firm intention
to become the most powerful man at Meissen.

The authorities failed to perceive this worrying trait and were spellbound by his self-confidence, his pleasant manners and
above all by his incredible artistic prowess. He quickly won numerous powerful supporters among Augustus's courtiers and key
members of the directorate, including Chladni, the court administrator, and Fleuter, a powerful member of the new Meissen
commission. Steinbrück reflected the prevailing opinion when he wrote in his notebook, “On 3 June there came to Meissen an
artist who is able to paint on porcelain in a particularly fine way; Herold is his name.”

As proof of his expertise Herold had brought with him to Meissen some of the precious enamels that Stölzel had stolen from
Vienna, as well as fourteen samples of porcelain he had decorated for du Paquier. This assortment of bowls, chocolate cups
and teacups was carefully examined by the Meissen inspectorate, who were so impressed that they admitted privately to themselves
that Herold's work was as fine as, if not finer than, anything any Meissen decorator had so far achieved. The samples were
good enough to be deemed worthy of royal attention and duly sent on to the king in Warsaw, who was also impressed. Herold,
meanwhile, was put to the test by being asked to decorate one or two pieces of Meissen porcelain. Steinbrück recorded this
significant moment in his notebooks: “the first service from him, which he had painted red, was fired on 19 July 1720 and
taken to Dresden.”

Obviously Herold passed with flying colors and within months of his arrival he had secured regular work as a freelance decorator.
He set up his decorator's studio and living quarters in the house of Nohr, the town clerk, in the cathedral square. His rooms
were conveniently positioned opposite the Meissen factory, but outside its precincts. He had managed to get the commission
to agree to extremely favorable terms whereby he would be paid piecemeal for every object he decorated and his fee would be
calculated according to his own assessment of the complexity of the design involved.

In the year since Böttger's death the haphazard Meissen factory administration had been dramatically improved as a newly appointed
commission of advisors, brought in to solve the financial mess, had overhauled the old management structure. They found that
the continual losses were largely a result of a top-heavy and dishonest management, many of whose members were expendable.
As a result the troublesome and devious Michael Nehmitz, who had so blighted Böttger's career, had fallen from his exalted
position, as had Meerheim and various other corrupt and superfluous members of the directorate. Steinbrück, a deserving beneficiary
of the reorganization, was now promoted to the position of overall administrator of the factory. Other much needed improvements
included modest increases in wages, the construction of three new kilns, and the sorting of wares into three separate categories
according to their quality so that inferior pieces did not reach the open market.

Almost immediately, this more efficient and streamlined arrangement boosted morale. Production rose and this in turn staunched
the flow of losses. At the Leipzig Easter Fair of 1720 so much porcelain was sold and so many orders were taken that royal
subsidies became a thing of the past. While not yet greatly profitable, the factory was at long last able to pay its own way,
and with the talented Herold to decorate the porcelain there seemed no end to the advances Meissen would be making.

Herold's painting meanwhile was developing in an increasingly distinctive style. He became adept at painting whimsical, jewel-like
chinoiseries framed within elaborately shaped cartouches. There are strange landscapes dotted with pagodas and bizarre vegetation
in which coolie-hatted, mustached Chinese clad in rich brocaded robes smoke, take tea, dance or grow rice. The skies in these
imaginary visions of the Orient are speckled with giant mosquitolike insects or fluttering swallows, and the gilded frames
that draw the spectator's eye inexorably to their magical contents are swagged with flowers and garlanded scrolls.

Augustus, long fascinated by such exotic themes, was predictably captivated by the sheer fantasy and opulence of Herold's
style, and the orders for pieces for the royal collection flooded in. After less than a year Herold's income increased tenfold.
The huge acclaim that he quickly earned forced the Meissen management to consider how the porcelain itself could be adapted
to highlight his skill. Gradually shapes were simplified and the purity of the translucent surface became the perfect foil
for the complexities of his designs.

Color was a key element in Herold's new style, and the pressure was more intense than ever to develop a wider palette of enamels.
Köhler, the arcanist whose obsessive secrecy and intrigues had originally played a part in driving Stölzel from Meissen, had
long immersed himself in this task. He had by now developed a fairly reliable recipe for underglaze blue and managed to make
some improvements to the range of enamel colors. But with manic secrecy he refused to divulge the formulas to anyone on the
commission for fear this would weaken his position. Instead he recorded his findings in a special arcanum book that he kept
securely locked up in a secret cupboard set into the wall of his bedchamber.

The suave, persuasive Herold, realizing that Köhler's cooperation would be crucial to his own career, managed somehow to charm
this fanatical man, though even he could not weaken his resolve to keep his formulas secret. But as Herold's output grew,
a still greater number of colors were needed, more than Köhler was able or willing to provide, and another compounder capable
of such complex work was urgently needed.

The management recognized that Stölzel, Herold's fugitive colleague, had invaluable experience in this area. Having been left
to spend several uneasy months of exile and illness at Freiberg wondering what would become of him, he was finally recalled
to Meissen, forgiven his misdemeanors and set to work supplying his former accomplice with colors.

Less than a year after his arrival at Meissen, Herold's decorating business in Nohr's house was doing so well that he was
able to take on his first apprentice, Johann Georg Heintze. Before long several more workers from the Dresden faience factory
were also employed and, as his business grew, a very different aspect of Herold's personality came to light. For while Meissen's
star painter was invariably charm personified to those on whose favor he depended, his employees were treated in a far less
sympathetic manner.

Herold's staff found their master to be a hardhearted, unpredictable and often extremely unpleasant employer. His apprentices'
lives were particularly miserable since they were housed and fed in his apartments and had little respite from his demands.
Hours of work were long and arduous for both trained artists and novices; in summer staff were expected to work from before
six in the morning till eight at night, in winter the usual hours were from dawn until nine. A short break was allowed at
midday but it was not long enough to allow those who lived in the town to go home for a meal. For this grueling regime the
rewards were meager. Pay was set at pathetically low rates, and it was almost impossible for the artists to earn enough to
support their families. Apprenticeships lasted for six years, during which time, although an apprentice's expertise inevitably
grew, virtually no rise in pay was provided to reflect his increasing skill.

Anyone who dared to question the paltry pay or the severity of the conditions was severely punished as a warning to others.
Herold had no qualms about using his network of powerful contacts to ensure that dissatisfied employees he had dismissed could
not find employment elsewhere in Meissen and were forced into destitution or to leave the district.

Even with this stranglehold over an already hugely profitable workshop Herold remained dissatisfied. He had no intention of
remaining a mere porcelain decorator for the rest of his days; his plan was gradually to inveigle his way into a more powerful
position at Meissen. To fulfill this ambition, he realized, he would have to make himself indispensable to Meissen—and to
do that he would need to gain knowledge of the arcanum.

The manufacture of Porcelane surpasses that of China because of the beauty of the paintings, in which there is great order
and proportion. The gold is used with great taste, and the painters are such as excel in their profession, being chosen by
the king, to whom the fabric belongs.

T
HOMAS
N
UGENT,
The Grand Tour,
1749

T
he most effective way of discovering the secret processes involved in porcelain-making, Herold decided, would be by stealth.
The problem was that his present situation gave him little chance to see or overhear anything. Living and working as he did
in Nohr's house, outside the castle's precincts, his opportunities to casually come and go in the laboratories or the compounding
rooms were few. Armed guards stood on constant watch outside the castle monitoring all arrivals. Outsiders were only allowed
in with special permission, and even then were not free to wander through the factory but were accompanied by a guard or member
of staff at all times and permitted entry only to certain “safe” areas where none of the secret processes took place.