21 FREE TRADE In June 1717, with the goal of promoting the development of a mercantilist Austrian economy, Emperor Charles VI (1685–1740) had assured, ‘each and every one of Our loyal inhabitants and subjects’ of his gracious favour and had called for the improvement of the existing manufactories and the establishment of new ones in the Habsburg hereditary lands. To this end, the emperor promised to give ‘masters at home and from abroad intent upon assisting in this aim, at their request, advantageous privileges and freedoms’, and his imperial protection; in addition, the trade routes by sea and on land were to be developed and, with the express involvement of the Court War Council, made more secure. The goal was ‘free trade’, as a salutary measure for ‘Us and the common weal’.10 That the year 1710 had seen the foundation of the Meissen porcelain manufactory as the first of its kind in Europe was an inspiration to follow in Saxony’s footsteps.11 As imperial legate in Saxony, Damian Hugo von Virmont provided invaluable assistance in recruiting suitable collaborators for the Vienna project. Firstly, he set his sights on the ‘art worker’ Christoph Conrad Hunger from Thuringia, who appeared to be a seasoned goldsmith, gilder and enameller. Most importantly, Hunger claimed, Böttger had divulged to him the secret recipe for porcelain paste. On 29 September 1717, he and an experienced collaborator of Böttger’s named Johann George Mehlhorn were rewarded by Augustus the Strong with three hundred thalers ‘on account of their new invention, namely, of applying the colour blue to porcelain’, prior to which the elector-king had been presented with a small bowl decorated in this manner.12 By this time or very soon after, the diplomat Virmont had been successful with Hunger, who was in Vienna before October was out. Du Paquier initially found Hunger a useful collaborator, as he knew all the most important craftsmen in Saxony, with whom he corresponded concerning materials and where they were obtained from. At Meissen, progress in the development of colours was slow. Although du Paquier succeeded in overtaking Meissen in this respect, for the moment he had a more fundamental problem to solve, namely, the composition of the porcelain paste. And time was running out, because in order to be granted a charter for producing porcelain he had to be able to show that he was capable of doing so. According to Hunger, the two of them searched in vain for the indispensable fine white kaolin for more than a year around Vienna and in Hungary and Bohemia, before finally finding their ‘china clay’ in the ecclesiastical principality of Passau. Virmont’s next success with personnel was Just Friedrich Tiemann’s arrival in Vienna in August 1718 with drawings of the kilns, an invaluable asset that du Paquier purchased for a mere fifty thalers.13 On 6 May 1718 Hunger wrote to Mehlhorn asking him to leave Saxony with one or two Meissen workers and a quantity of cobalt blue in time to arrive in Vienna within three weeks, and to pick up a small barrel of the Passau kaolin on the way. The three weeks’ notice he gave (although Mehlhorn in fact lost his nerve and stayed in Meissen) was calculated to coincide with the projected date of the Privilege, which Emperor Charles VI duly signed at the palace of Laxenburg on 27 May 1718. There are no records to tell us whether Emperor Charles VI was surprised by the idea of a porcelain manufactory in Vienna, or whether he was not perhaps personally involved on account of the forthcoming dynastic alliance with Saxony and the news of the progress made at Meissen with the ‘Sächsische Porcellain’; however, the Privilege does mention that du Paquier had presented the matter for consideration several times before.14 In any case, the Privilege, which is preserved in the form of a copy covering five closely written pages, considers all specific aspects of the project, praising the symbiosis of ‘industry, art and science’ and commenting on matters ranging from the procurement of raw materials through to the risks involved, principally ‘danger and great expenses’.15 It is likely that all the technical matters mentioned in the Privilege echo elements in du Paquier’s application, which has not been preserved. The three partners named as ‘Mit-Consorten’ in the Privilege were: Christoph 10 ‘allen und jeden Unseren Getreuen Inwohnern und Unterthanen’/‘hierzu behilfflichen Auß- und inländischen Maistern auf ihr Anmelden gedeyliche Privilegia und Freyheiten’/‘freye commercium’/‘Uns/und dem gemeinen Weesen’. Facsimile of Charles VI’s decree on the promotion of commerce, entitled on the ‘Einricht-, Beförder- und Vermehrung des Commercii’, Vienna, 1717, in exh. cat. Vienna 1970, 12. 11 S ee the essay by Iris Yvonne Wagner in this volume, 41–48. 12 ‘Wegen der neuen Invention die Blaue Farbe auf das Porcellain zutragen’. Quoted from Rückert 1990, for Mehlhorn senior see vol. 2, 51, and for Hunger, vol. 10, 82. 13 Lehner-Jobst 2009, 158. 14 ‘ des mehreren vor- und angebracht habe’ From the Privilege of 27 May 1718, OeStA Wien FHKA, NHK Bancale Akten NÖ 620, fol. 1 r (copy of a later date). 15 ‘Fleiss, Kunst und Wissenschafft’/ ‘Gefahr und grosse Unkosten’. Ibid.
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