Bolesławiec ceramics and Hollywood
To mark the premiere of the third season of the series The Mandal Orian, set in the Star Wars universe, Disney invited six Polish artists to collaborate in 2023. They were to prepare posters depicting local versions of the Mandalorian helmet. The Wrocław (more precisely, Lower Silesian) design created by Jakub Kamiński featured a Bolesławiec ceramics motif.
Our local gold also had the opportunity to “appear” in the sequel to the hugely popular 365 Days films based on Blanka Lipińska’s prose (365 Days: This Day, 2022). The film itself received very poor reviews, but in one scene the two main characters—Polish woman Laura Biel and Italian mafioso Don Massimo—and their loved ones eat dinner at a table set with Bolesławiec ceramics.
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In 2018, Magda Gessler opened her White Goose Bistro restaurant in the British capital, where dishes are served, among other things, on Bolesławiec stoneware. Four years earlier, she had visited Bolesławiec while filming an episode of Kuchenne rewolucje.
Bolesławiec ceramics have also been the focus of many major charity initiatives. On two occasions, beautiful sets were created in Bolesławiec for the Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy charity campaign. “Wind in the Sails—WOŚP 2020” is a 47-piece ceramic set inspired by the artwork of the 28th WOŚP finale; it was sold at auction for more than 14,000 złoty. In 2023, a unique collection of plates decorated with artwork by WOŚP head Jurек Owsiak was created. The set sold at auction for more than 13,000 złoty.
One of the more important charity initiatives involving Bolesławiec ceramics was conducted by a company from the United States. The auction, organized by Surroundings Polish Pottery, aimed to raise funds to support Ukraine in its war against Russia. A stoneware vase sold at auction for $2,340. The original decoration in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, depicting sunflowers, ears of grain and a white dove, among other elements, was created by Ukrainian artist Julia Sidenko as a tribute to her homeland and as an expression of hope that Ukraine would recover from the destruction of war and that peace would return. It is worth adding that proceeds from all auctions of Bolesławiec ceramics held to support Ukraine were used to purchase water-filtration systems and disinfectants for surgical purposes. These supplies were delivered to Ukraine by the American WaterStep Foundation.
What Is Bolesławiec Made Of?
The history of Bolesławiec has been inseparably linked with pottery since the Middle Ages. This is all thanks to the city’s location in the basins of the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers, which are rich in deposits of clay suitable for producing stoneware, as well as clays used for glazing that give vessels a slightly glassy, brown surface. Earth glaze, named after its brown color, was characteristic of Bolesławiec products. Cobalt stamps and peacock eyes were invented in the 19th century.
As residents of Bolesławiec, we are very closely connected with this history of ceramics—perhaps even a little too closely, as shown by a true anecdote from our own neighborhood. While welcoming female ceramic sculptors at an official event, one local government official said that they practiced the oldest profession in the world. Only those who did not live in Bolesławiec thought of any profession other than… pottery.
The Great Pot...
In 1753, the Great Pot was created in the city—a 600-kilogram clay work by local potter Master Johann Gottlieb Joppe and a showcase of historic Bolesławiec, then known as Bunzlau. The vessel was more than two meters high and could hold nearly 2,000 liters. It was so large that, after paying a fee, people could enter it. In this way, among others, John Quincy Adams, who traveled around Europe in 1800 and would later become president of the United States, saw it from the inside. The pot was featured on postcards, and small souvenir replicas were also sold. One confectionery made a cake in its shape, and in 1879 writer Kart T. Pfautz created a play featuring the great vessel as its main character. The pot disappeared in 1945—it may have been destroyed by soldiers of the Red Army.
… and five replicas
Five replicas of it were made in Bolesławiec. The first, made of cement in 1939, did not survive the war. The second was created in 2000 by ceramic artists Władysław Garnik and Andrzej Trzaska, but vandals destroyed it in 2007. The third, made of plastic, stands at the Museum of Ceramics and faithfully reproduces the original at a 1:1 scale. Sculptor and ceramic artist Mateusz Grobelny attempted to prepare the fourth replica during the Bolesławiec Ceramics Festival in 2016, but the vessel collapsed during firing.
The fifth was created in 2018 during Gliniada® (then called Glina Show), which formed part of the Bolesławiec Ceramics Festival celebrations. At istotne.pl, we organized a parade of people painted with clay slip. An additional attraction was the presentation of a recycled pot. The spectacular structure was more than four meters high and placed on a special platform with wheels and a pull bar. Local artist Waldemar Cieślak made the replica of the famous vessel from recycled materials, including 440 mineral-water bottles. The artist’s family collected that many bottles by buying mineral water for a year. The pot’s presentation was intended to encourage reflection on what we can do with waste as people responsible for the environment, and how we can use it so that it becomes valuable and serves as a raw material for producing new materials. After the parade, the pot decorated the square in front of the Municipal Communal Services Facility in Bolesławiec until 2021. Sunlight and bird droppings destroyed it.
Who Invented “Peacock Eyes” on Bolesławiec Ceramics?
However, today’s appearance of ceramics from Bolesławiec, painted with various versions of the famous peacock eyes, is not owed to Master Joppe, who used brown and dark-brown glaze, but to Johann Gottlieb Altmann (1780–1851), who pioneered the technology of glazing brown ceramic products white. Later, white vessels began to be decorated with various painted patterns, and over time the stamping method was developed. The main motifs were cobalt-colored dots made with a sponge.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, as Art Nouveau motifs became fashionable, the most popular of all patterns began to be used: peacock eyes. These are what Bolesławiec ceramics are most associated with. At the end of the 19th century, a ceramics school was established in Bolesławiec to train future employees of the ceramic factories, of which there were already several dozen. In 1897, at the Royal Vocational Ceramics School under the direction of Dr. Wilhelm Pukalla, an outstanding chemist associated with the Royal Porcelain Manufactory in Berlin, an innovative educational program was developed that closely combined the development of artistic skills with technical knowledge.
How Many Ceramicists Are There in the City of Ceramics?
Today, around forty larger and smaller companies producing stoneware vessels operate in Bolesławiec and the surrounding area, while the Bolesławiec Ceramics Brotherhood, active since 2009, has more than twenty members. Although Bolesławiec is home to many ceramic companies, most Poles still believe that there is only one ceramics factory in the city. Even President Andrzej Duda thought so; he admitted this in 2019 during his first official visit to the city—even though two years earlier he and his wife, Agata Kornhauser-Duda, had presented a dinner service from one of Bolesławiec’s ceramic companies to Britain’s Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales.
As residents of Bolesławiec, we hope this will soon change and that the products of the many ceramic companies will receive even more attention.
In April 2023, several dozen custodians signed an application at Bolesławiec Town Hall to have Bolesławiec ceramics entered on the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. This is the first step toward having Bolesławiec ceramics entered on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The custodians included representatives of ceramic factories, local governments, cultural institutions, schools and associations, including the boleslawianie.eu association, which organized a parade in Bolesławiec from 2018 to 2023 during the Ceramics Festival featuring people painted with clay—Bolesławiec’s Gliniada®.
Close Culture Program—Co-financed from the funds of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage