Contemporary collection of fine porcelain ware

Press, 14 December 1977, Page 38

Contemporary collection of fine porcelain ware

Mr A. J. Schneideman is particularly proud of the fine selection of porcelain availab.e at the Duty Free Shop. Privately, he is an avid collector of antique porcelain, and loves to travel the world choosing contemporary collections for his shop. His most recent acquisition is a collection from East Germany, made in the Dresden-Meissen area, where the ancient Chinese art of making porcelain was rediscovered in the eighteenth century. It has taken Mr Schneideman nine months to negotiate taking the porcelain out of communist East Germany and into New Zealand. Me Schneideman came by the collection of Danish porcelain quite by accident. He had travelled to Copenhagen to visit the Royal Copenhagen factory, but had very little time to spend there.

He telephoned Royal Copenhagen for an appointment and rushed to the address he was given. It was not until he was placing his order that he realised he was actually in the factory across the street from Royal Copenhagen ' — Bing and Grondahl. The world-famous Hummel porcelain is manufactured at a huge factory in West Germany. Mr Schneideman remembers being told on one of his visits there that when a

new office boy is sent to the other side of the factory with a message in the morning, he gets so lost he does not arrive back until the end of the day. According to Mr Shneideman, Lladro, in Valencia, Spain, is presently one of the biggest sellers of porcelain in the world. They have experimented with different mixtures of clay and sand, and have produced beautifully smooth figures with soft, subtle colourings. T h e meticulously detailed porcelain bears the name of one of Europe’s oldest procelain factories. The factory was established near Naples, Italy, in 1743 bv Charles of Bourbon, then the King of Naples. The art of porcelain originated in China, the earliest pieces dating back to about 900 A.D. Porcelain was introduced to Europe in the fifteenth century, but it was not until 1709 that the Chinese materials in porcelain making were discovered and duplicated by a German chemist. Porcelain is the finest and hardest kind of earthernweare, made from kaolin, a fine white clay. It is baked at a high temperature and is traditionally covered with a translucent glaze.