San Francisco Ceramic Circle

Illustrated Lecture

"An Alchemist's Red Gold: Meissen's First Creations"

by

Malcolm Gutter

"Author, Collector and SFCC Board member"

8.00 PM Thursday, 16th August 2007

The Constance and Henry Bowles Porcelain Gallery

Palace of the Legion of Honor. Lincoln Park, San Francisco

Enter from the West Terrace. Doors open from 7.30 PM

About the speaker: Malcolm Gutter is an economist by profession and a collector of ceramics with an interest in all aspects of the decorative arts by avocation. He holds degrees from City College of the City University of New York and the University of California, Berkeley. He taught economics at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills for more than 30 years and also at the Berkeley Extension of the University of California. In 1976 he took a Fine and Decorative Art course in London and subsequently started giving courses on the history of interior design and surveys of Western Decorative Art at both Foothill College and University of California, Berkeley Extension. He is a well known collector of Early Meissen and other ceramics and has published articles in Antiques magazines and Journals on Ceramics. He belongs to many ceramic collector organizations and is on the Board of the SFCC, In 2004 he was named among the top 100 collectors in America by the magazine Art and Antiques.

About the Lecture : In the first decade of the 18th century Johann Friedrich Bttger , collaborating with Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus and a mining expert discovered the ability to produce Europe's first true white porcelain. Concomitant with its development was an equally important but less well known product - a red stoneware superior to any produced before in Europe or Asia. Under the patronage of Augustus the Strong of Saxony Bottger's Dresden laboratory was abandoned in 1710 in favor of a full-fledged manufactory at Meissen, fourteen miles northwest. During its initial three years of operation, however, the Meissen manufactory produced exclusively the redware. It is this remarkable and unique product that will be the subject of this lecture, illustrated by the great pieces from the royal collection in Dresden. This will be an ideal opportunity to experience.... albeit vicariously... some of the great objects in this remarkable collection.

Next event: Thursday 27th September2007. A slide lecture by Letitia Roberts, Independent Scholar and Researcher, formerly Sr. V.P. European & Chinese Export Ceramics, Sothebys ,NYC"In Praise of Passion, Perseverence and Purpose: the Harriet Carlton Goldweitz Collection of English Pottery"