KPM Berlin: A Prussian Legacy in Porcelain
- steampunkpicker
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 29 minutes ago
Porcelain has long carried meanings beyond decoration. In eighteenth-century Europe it was known as “white gold” - a material bound up with power, taste, and technological ambition. Few names embody that convergence as clearly as KPM Berlin. Founded in 1763, it is the oldest porcelain factory in Berlin and second oldest in Germany.
Part product spotlight, part Prussian porcelain history, this post uses one of KPM Berlin’s most enduring forms - the white striding tiger as an entry point into a longer story of craft, innovation, and perseverance.
The porcelain striding tiger featured here has a lineage that reaches well beyond KPM and porcelain alone. Its design traces back to Antoine-Louis Barye (1796–1875), one of the most influential nineteenth-century animal sculptors and a central figure in the animalier tradition - a movement dedicated to the realistic and expressive depiction of animals.
Originally modelled in 1839, Barye’s tiger was celebrated for its close observation of anatomy and its sense of contained movement - qualities that challenged more static approaches to animal sculpture of the time. His bronzes were exhibited at the Paris Salons and collected by museums, royalty, and private patrons across Europe.
This convergence of fine art and decorative art is historically significant. In the nineteenth century, bronzes such as Barye’s tiger circulated primarily within elite collecting circles. KPM Berlin later reinterpreted these sculptural forms for a broader audience, translating them into porcelain objects suitable for domestic display rather than gallery or salon contexts.
KPM’s porcelain interpretation, produced more than a century later, does far more than reproduce a popular motif. It stages Barye’s dynamic design in a different medium by translating bronze’s physical heft into the refined white body of porcelain, and pushing moulding, firing, and modelling processes in service of sculptural presence. The result is a piece that brings together fine-art sculpture and decorative-art craft, carrying two histories at once.
You can browse this striding white tiger from my collection below:
Royal Origins
The story of KPM Berlin begins at a moment of intense ambition. Not only for Prussia, but for European porcelain more broadly. Attempts to establish porcelain production in Berlin date back to the 1750s, when Wilhelm Caspar Wegely secured the closely guarded Chinese porcelain arcanum and launched a factory with royal support. That first effort soon failed under the pressures of the Seven Years’ War, and a second attempt under Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky also collapsed amid financial strain.
On 19 September 1763, King Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great b.1712–1786) intervened directly. He purchased the enterprise, renamed it the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin, and granted it the cobalt-blue sceptre emblem that remains KPM’s identifying mark today. This was both a bid to match the technical achievements of rival courts and a strategic assertion of Prussian cultural identity.
KPM’s early production was closely tied to court culture and royal preference. Dinner services were often designed to harmonise with palace interiors, and unique innovations such as the delicate bleu mourant glaze which were developed for specific patrons.
Notably, the factory’s organisation was progressive for its time. Workers benefited from regulated hours, comparatively good wages, pensions, and communal healthcare - unusual conditions in an eighteenth-century manufacturing context, and an early indication that KPM’s longevity would rest not only on products, but on people.
Competitive Context: Meissen and Berlin
The roots of KPM Berlin like those of all European porcelain ultimately lead back to Meissen, the Saxon town where the secret of producing Chinese hard-paste porcelain was first mastered in Europe.
From there, the story becomes one of ambition and rivalry. Throughout the eighteenth century, courts across Europe sought to reproduce the arcanum, establishing manufactories in competition rather than collaboration.
Although Meissen and Berlin now sit within the same national borders, they initially developed under very different conditions. Germany was not a unified state until 1871. Meissen belonged to Saxony; Berlin to Prussia. Two rival powers, each determined to assert cultural and economic authority. That political separation meant porcelain knowledge could not simply migrate north; Berlin was forced to forge its own technical and artistic path.
By the time German unification arrived in 1871, both centres already possessed mature, distinct traditions. This is why Germany today is home to two leading porcelain houses - Meissen and KPM Berlin - each born from the same original discovery, yet shaped by different histories and identities.
Frederick William II and the Classicist Era (Post-1786)
After the death of Frederick the Great in 1786, the next significant chapter in KPM’s history unfolded under his nephew, Frederick William II. Where Frederick had established the manufactory as a symbol of courtly taste and cultural ambition, his successor sought to place it at the forefront of technical and artistic innovation.
Under Frederick William II’s reign, KPM gained access to state-of-the-art technology, including Berlin’s first steam engine and horse-powered glaze mills. These investments improved production efficiency and material preparation, marking a clear departure from purely traditional handcraft methods at a time when European porcelain manufacture was becoming increasingly competitive.
This period also saw close collaboration with some of Germany’s most prominent artists and architects, including Johann Gottfried Schadow, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and Christian Daniel Rauch. Their involvement helped elevate KPM porcelain from luxury tableware into a recognised artistic medium, bridging aristocratic taste and emerging classicist aesthetics.
In hindsight, this era reinforced KPM’s commitment to integrating technical mastery with artistic vision, anticipating later developments such as the Chemical-Technical Institute and the manufactory’s engagement with modern design movements.
Craft, Change, and Design Evolution
Over the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, KPM Berlin was one of Europe’s most consistently successful porcelain manufactories. Its visual language evolved from Rococo exuberance to Neoclassical restraint, while maintaining high craft standards and courtly relevance.
Prized for both quality and historical significance, antique KPM wares from this period include dinner services, figurines, painted plaques, and vases, which remain widely collected today. In 1837, the addition of the letters KPM beside the sceptre mark reinforced authenticity and guarded against counterfeits - a concern even then in luxury markets.
By the turn of the twentieth century, KPM had demonstrated a defining characteristic: the ability to adapt design language without abandoning craft discipline.
Science & Skill Combined: The Chemical-Technical Institute (1878)
A decisive shift in KPM Berlin’s development came in 1878, when the manufactory established a Chemical-Technical Institute under the direction of the chemist Hermann August Seger.
This marked a recognition that porcelain production now depended as much on scientific understanding as on inherited skill. Seger, a materials scientist rather than a decorative artist, led systematic research into clay bodies, glazes, pigments, and firing temperatures.
The Institute’s work expanded KPM’s chromatic range, improved colour stability, and enhanced surface quality - persistent challenges in porcelain manufacture. Crucially, this scientific approach did not replace handcraft; it strengthened it, giving artisans greater control over outcomes while preserving manual processes.
In a modern context, the Institute functioned as an early form of in-house R&D, positioning KPM to compete on technical performance as well as aesthetic refinement.
Jugendstil at KPM: When Science Met Style
The advances made through KPM’s Chemical-Technical Institute coincided with a major shift in European visual culture: the emergence of Art Nouveau, known in Germany as Jugendstil.
This transition found its clearest expression from 1908, under the artistic direction of Theodor Schmuz-Baudiss. His appointment at KPM marked a deliberate effort to position the manufactory within contemporary design rather than confining it to historical styles.
Jugendstil demanded more than new forms however. Its emphasis on surface, colour, and rhythmic unity required precisely the technical flexibility enabled by Seger’s earlier research. Expanded glaze palettes and experimental finishes allowed KPM to move toward a more fluid visual language.
Under Schmuz-Baudiss’s leadership, porcelain objects were conceived as integrated wholes. Vases and decorative forms adopted sinuous profiles, restrained ornament, and carefully modulated surfaces that responded subtly to light. These works were not merely fashionable; they represented a rethinking of porcelain as a modern artistic medium.
Importantly, KPM’s Jugendstil output retained structural clarity and technical discipline, reflecting its origins in a manufactory where science and craftsmanship operated in tandem. Jugendstil at KPM was not a rupture with tradition, but an evolution made possible by earlier scientific foresight.
From State to Private Ownership
From Near-Collapse to Cultural Stewardship
Following Kaiser Wilhelm II's abdication and subsequent collapse of the Prussian monarchy in 1918, KPM Berlin was owned by the state. By the late twentieth century, KPM Berlin had endured centuries of political change, two world wars, technological transition, and shifting markets - yet its survival was not assured. After decades of state ownership marked by instability and mismanagement, the manufactory stood on the brink of insolvency in the early 2000s.
In February 2006, Berlin banker Jörg Woltmann made a decisive intervention. With only minutes to spare, he opted not to wait for a bankruptcy fire sale, but to purchase KPM outright as sole shareholder. Acting against conventional financial advice, he followed what he described as his “gut feeling” - a decision rooted in commitment to Berlin’s cultural heritage as much as commercial instinct.
Woltmann’s acquisition ended a turbulent era and began a new chapter defined by entrepreneurial stewardship. He invested in the physical site through the redevelopment of the KPM Quartier, strengthened operations, and established the Stiftung Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to preserving the manufactory’s archives and cultural mission.
Under his leadership, KPM has consciously balanced craft tradition with contemporary relevance. It remains one of the few manufactories worldwide to produce porcelain almost entirely by hand, with each piece undergoing dozens of quality checks - a testament to enduring technique in an age of industrial commoditisation.
Closing Thoughts
Today, KPM Berlin stands as a rare example of a historically rooted manufactory that has navigated political upheaval, technological change, and market pressure not by abandoning its past, but by adapting its strengths to unfamiliar landscapes.
The striding white tiger featured here encapsulates that continuity - a nineteenth-century sculptural idea carried forward through porcelain, scientific expertise, and institutional perseverance.
➡️ To explore the striding white tiger in more detail you can click the link here or you can watch this short video below.