Langenthal porcelain in CERAMICA CH
Andreas Heege, 2019
The Langenthal Porzellanfabrik AG was founded on 4th July 1906. Initially its capital amounted to 500,000 Swiss francs distributed among 47 shareholders. The first vessels were fired on 17th January 1908, at which stage it had a staff of 87 workers, 35 of whom had been recruited from Bohemia. The kaolin was sourced from the region of Karlsbad in what is now Czechia. In 1909, the Bernese painter Rudolf Münger was appointed to the position of art director, and by 1910, the company had already become profitable.
The Langenthal porcelain factory advertised in the official “Illustriertes Ausstellungsalbum” (illustrated exhibition album) of the Swiss National Exhibition of 1914 in Bern.
The First World War years were a time of crisis, which, however, appears to have been overcome. In 1920, Fernand Renfer joined the management of the porcelain factory. A graduate of the School of Ceramics in Chavannes-près-Renens, Renfer made a significant impact on the appearance of Langenthal porcelain. As a technological innovation, an electric tunnel kiln (Blondel 2001, 166) was installed in 1936 and 1937 to replace the old coal-fired circular kilns. Two more tunnel kilns were constructed in 1941-1942 and in 1950-1951. New buildings with gas-fired kilns were added in 1964-1965. The company’s most successful years were between 1950 and 1970, and it had the largest workforce in 1964, when it employed 950 staff. In the 1980s, the Langenthal factory began to decline and, following a merger with the Keramik Holding Laufen AG in 1988, production was gradually moved to present-day Czechia. By 1998, porcelain production in Langenthal had ceased entirely and only the painting shops remained. The company was bought by the Czechian G.Benedikt Group in 2003 and today, all Langenthal porcelain is made in Czechia. However, there is still a retail outlet in grounds of the old factory in Langenthal.
An extensive homepage dedicated to Langenthal porcelain
The Langenthal porcelain factory marks
Langenthal porcelain in the collection of the Musée Ariana in Geneva
Translation Sandy Haemmerle
References:
Blondel 2001
Nicole Blondel, Céramique : vocabulaire technique, Paris 2001, 166.
Gallati 1962
Werner Gallati, Die Porzellanfabrik Langenthal, in: Jahrbuch des Oberaargaus 5, 1962, 178-186.
Schnyder 1979
Rudolf Schnyder, Langenthal und die Tradition des Schweizer Porzellans – Bemerkungen zur Fabrikmarke von Langenthal, in: Mitteilungsblatt der Keramikfreunde der Schweiz 92, 1979, 5-8.
Schumacher/Quintero 2012
Anne-Claire Schumacher/Ana Quintero, La manufacture de Porcelaine de Langenthal, entre design industriel et vaiselle du dimanche – Die Porzellanmanufaktur Langenthal, zwischen Industriedesign und Sonntagsgeschirr, Milan 2012.
