This book is a study of a single commodity and its production and retail, focusing primarily on Germany. Porcelain began as a highly prestigious product for an elite clientele but by the twentieth century had become a mass-market commodity used for bathroom fixtures. Producers of porcelain sought to emphasize the exclusivity of the product by showcasing its artistic merit. However, there were not sufficient customers beyond royalty to create a market of a viable size. Most German porcelain manufacturers were unable to create an intermediate market for the middle classes in the way that Josiah Wedgwood did in Britain. Instead, German goods were disproportionally focused on the high and low ends of the market. The low end became vulnerable to Chinese competition from the 1970s onwards.
The introduction sets out the scope of the book. Suzanne Marchand argues that porcelain is a relevant commodity through which to trace the transition of Germany from minor to major player in the global economy. Its production required capital and entrepreneurial drive and resulted in the establishment of brands. Yet as a commodity it has received less attention in the existing central European business history scholarship than mining and brewing.
Chapters 1 and 2 identify the factory founders. German princes established large state factories, which primarily produced goods for themselves and their courtiers. Alternatively, they supported factory foundation by private entrepreneurs. From a business history perspective, further elaboration of the business models would have been beneficial, as there are references in the chapters to the importance of social capital and to the role of family firms that are not fully explored.
Product range is examined in chapters 3, 4, and 5, which cover developments from roughly 1760 to 1850. Consumption habits changed and new opportunities to market porcelain emerged. Royalty replaced silver dinner services with porcelain ones and increased the number of settings used. Tea and coffee sets became desirable for middle-class consumers for the new meals of breakfast and afternoon tea. Private firms were more adaptable, expanding their market and embracing efficiencies that lowered production costs and therefore retail price. In contrast, state enterprises were reluctant to modify their offering, arguing that their role was to produce nationally significant works of artistic merit.
Chapters 6 and 7 focus on the period from 1850 to 1914, a span that Marchand argues is under-researched. Yet it was significant, as during the period both mass-market and bespoke producers began to update their ranges to reflect new artistic movements such as the avant-garde. This focus on design benefited the state-run firms. Bulk orders from railway companies and hotels aided private producers and, in the case of hotels, also provided additional opportunities for the display pieces produced by the state firms. State-run firms also began to target the middle classes. Instead of focusing only on royalty, there was a recognition that in middle-class homes women were the key arbitrators of taste. Dinner services were marketed to middle-class women as ideal wedding gifts, whose cost of purchase could be spread among the guests.
World War I temporarily disrupted demand. Its aftermath, chapter 8 shows, saw changes in the structure of the industry and greater state involvement. The Nazi Party annexed factories and reorientated their production toward gifts and tableware for party members and the military. The party's focus on domestic life and large families also led to greater consumer demand for tableware.
The book's final chapter explores the gradual decline in the popularity of porcelain from the 1950s to the present day. Small German firms that fell under Soviet control after the division of Germany were merged. Meissen, a rare survivor of the state-run factories, remained in operation but there were diverging opinions as to whether it should focus on producing affordable tableware and Soviet-style motivational figurines or high-end items for export to the West. A bigger challenge for all central European firms, however, was competition from China and changes in lifestyle habits that reduced the need for large dinner services. The shift from success in the 1960s to decline in the 2000s is summarized succinctly but would have benefited from more elaboration on how the global trends interacted with the political factors specific to Germany.
A strong aspect of the book is its broad chronological scope. Encompassing more than four centuries, circa 1600 to the present, this book contains material of interest to researchers on early modern and modern business history. It extends the story of porcelain beyond the discovery of the recipe in Europe and the establishment of the first factories, which have been covered in work including Janet Gleeson's The Arcanum: The Extraordinary True Story of the Invention of European Porcelain (1998). Meanwhile, the focus on European producers and consumers complements the work undertaken by Regina Lee Blaszczyk on producers and consumers of American ceramics in the period from about 1860 to 1960.
The comparison throughout the book between state-operated firms and private enterprises is effective and will be of interest to business historians. The book communicates a lot of information at quite a fast pace. This seems to be partly due to a need to engage with a range of academic fields, including the history of retailing and consumption. A brief conclusion summarizing the key changes in finance, firm structure, product range, and consumer base would have been helpful.
Overall, however, the book is attractively presented, with colorful endpapers and illustrative images. It succeeds in its task of demonstrating that porcelain production in central Europe deserves more attention from a business history perspective than it has previously received.
