Since the middle ages, Western Europeans have practiced alchemy, a primitive form of chemistry, in the great hope of transforming base metal into gold. In the early 18th century, a second great secret puzzled Western Europe's early scientists: how to make porcelain. Recently arrived from the Orient, porcelain quickly became a symbol of power, prestige, and good taste. In The Arcanum, Janet Gleeson presents an entertaining and informative account of the invention of European porcelain and the founding of the Meissen Porcelain Manufacture outside Dresden, Germany. Her narrative focuses on three individuals: Alchemist Johann Frederick Böttger inadvertently discovered the arcanum, or secret formula, for making porcelain; Johan Gregor Herold, an ambitious artist, developed colors and patterns of unparalleled brilliance at the newly established Meissen Porcelain Manufacture; Johann Joachim Kaendler, a virtuoso sculptor, used the Meissen porcelain to invent a new art form. Interwoven with the story of Augustus the Strong, the greedy and ambitious king of the Kingdom of Saxony, who held Böttger captive until he discovered the formula, Gleeson's tale reads easily and maintains a high level of suspense and intrigue throughout. --Bertina Loeffler
From Library Journal
The story of Johann Friedrich Bottger, imprisoned by a greedy king after discovering how to make porcelain. A No. 1 London Times best seller.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The birthplace of European porcelain, Dresden and environs attract throngs transfixed by the translucent exquisiteness of that luxury ceramic. So fine a thing must conceal a fine story, which emerges wonderfully in Gleeson's charming account of the (re)invention of porcelain, which the Chinese had made for centuries. The few examples that reached Europe unbroken stoked the lust of Augustus II of Saxony, a roueof Brobdingnagian appetites. His extravagance was so boundless he ordered a porcelain palace to be built (it was not completed), but that's getting ahead of the story. Gleeson's hero is Johann Frederick Bx9a ttger, an alchemist who came to Augustus' avaricious attention in 1701. The gold Augustus wanted never materialized, despite Bx9a ttger's promises, putting him in danger of execution as a fraud. Skillfully dramatizing Bx9a ttger's desperation, Gleeson describes how he instead developed a secret method--the arcanum--for firing and glazing porcelain. Its gold-like generation of wealth pleased Augustus, but surrounding sovereigns were jealous, making the arcanum the prize of subterfuges and Frederick the Great's wars. Pure reading pleasure. Gilbert Taylor
From Kirkus Reviews
The often excitingand always absorbingstory of the European development of the formula for making fine porcelain and the growth of the Meissen works that led the way. The ``arcanum'' usually refers to the age-old quest for a recipe for turning base metals into gold. Gleeson uses it appropriately here not only because porcelain became known as ``white gold'' in 18th-century Europe, but also because Johann Frederick Bttger, the alchemist who first created European porcelain, had originally set out to make gold. Having rashly claimedand ``demonstrated''that he could do so, Bttger was imprisoned in 1701 by the greedy Augustus II, king of Poland and elector of Saxony. Augustus, whose appetite for women and riches was legendary, held Bttger for decades; while his gold-making experiments failed repeatedly, he was given the task of discovering the ancient Chinese secret of making porcelain. Bttger eventually did make fine white porcelain from gray clay, prompting his ``ironic testimony'' above his laboratory door: ``God . . . has made a potter from a gold-maker.'' Never granted his freedom, Bttger was made head of the king's porcelain factory at Meissen. Gleeson traces the history and development of porcelain artistry from there by following the careers of the mean-spirited Johann Gregor Herold, an artist whose inventive colors and patterns set the standard, and the sculptor Johann Joachim Kaendler, whose fine work in 1730s Dresden would bring about a bitter rivalry with Herold. The sublime results of their competitive work can still be viewed in the museums of Dresden and Meissen. Gleeson does a marvelous job of relating court intrigue, decadence, and chicanery; but her descriptions of 2,200-piece dinner services and the lavish banquets on tables decorated by porcelain finery, including an eight-foot-high model of the Piazza Navona with running rosewater, steal the show. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
The story of Böttger's quest for the new arcanum ... is admirably told by Janet Gleeson.... The Arcanum reads fluidly and presents a full complement of character types. -- The New York Times Book Review, Ed Regis
