Tettau

[1] : Königlich privilegierte Porzellanmanufaktur Tettau, Schmidt & Greiner (1794 until 1852):

This well known factory started after the German naturalist Alexander von Humbold had put in a good word for the would-be founders during meetings with the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II and so Johann Friedrich Paul Schmidt from Coburg and the brothers Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Greiner and Georg Christian Friedmann Greiner from Kloster Veilsdorf on December 28th 1794 finally received the required permission. The first Bavarian porcelain factory at first concentrated on normal household items as well as coffee, tea and cocoa sets but soon also started to create complete dinner settings. Even if the original permit was only valid for fifteen years, it was later transformed into an unlimited permission due to the success of the factory which greatly pleased the King. During the later years, Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Greiner's son Balthasar was also involved, however he did not share the same interest in the factory and then decided to sell it.

[2] : Königlich privilegierte Porzellanmanufaktur Tettau, Ferdinand Klaus (1852 until 1866)

In 1852 Ferdinand Klaus took over the company and continued to use the same markings. He also kept the product range and only made minor changes in decoration style; the further decorators employed increased the workforce to around 70 people.

[3] : Königlich privilegierte Porzellanmanufaktur Tettau, Sontag & Birkner (1866 until 1879)

Only fourteens years later, the company was sold again, this time to Wilhelm Sontag and Karl Birkner.

[4] : Königlich privilegierte Porzellanmanufaktur Tettau, Sontag & Maisel (1879 until 1902)

After Birkner retired from business his place was taken by the investor and businessman Ludwig Maisel. In 1897 a large blaze completely destroyed the factory and based on the very promising business forecast the owners instantly started to rebuild the factory on a much larger scale, pushing the workforce count to just over 200 people. Following the successful restart of operations, Maisel decided to retire and his former partner was joined by his sons.

[5] : Königlich privilegierte Porzellanmanufaktur Tettau, Sontag & Söhne (1902 until 1915)

Sontag's sons were very active and next to running the business in Tettau they also opened a decoration studio in the Thuringian town of Geiersthal where they next to other items mainly decorated goods made by the Fraureuth Porzellan company. During the next years the factory was constantly modernized and prospered, leading to the transformation into a corporation in the year 1915.

[6] : Porzellanmanufaktur Tettau A.G. (1915 until 1958)

Since around 1913 the very successful business had specialized on restaurantware and hotel porcelain as well as special sets for children; its very wide product range was exported worldwide. Max Wunderlich became managing director in 1918. Only from around 1930 did the factory actually produce large numbers of items decorated in 'Strohblume' (strawflower) and 'Zwiebelmuster' (Blue Onion) styles. Until around 1937 the factory only employed around 250 workers and that number is a great example of how modern and well structured the factory was; in comparison other companies at the same time employed far more people and created less output per year. Following the end of WW2 Max Wunderlich changed the overall product range from standard houshold china to finer, elaborate tableware and was hightly successful. All this did not go unnoticed and the company had for some time caught the attention of the Christian Seltmann company.

[7] : Königlich privilegierte Porzellanmanufaktur Tettau G.m.b.H. (1958 until 2018)

The owner of the ⇒Porzellanfabrik Christian Seltmann G.m.b.H. in Weiden Wilhelm Seltmann became main shareholder of the factory in 1957 and shortly afterwards took over completely, integrating it into the family-owned Seltmann Weiden group after transforming the Tettau factory into a limited liability company. One of the last great successes of the Tettau factory was the 2010/2011 patented invention of what was marketed as Diamant-Porzellan, a material which combined the aesthetics of ivory paste porcelain with the hardness of white bone china.

Business however constantly declined and eventually the factory was degraded to whiteware and mug production for other parts of the Seltmann Group but constantly increasing fuel and transport prices soon made that uneconomical. This inevitably lead to factory closure and over 220 years of porcelain production history finally came to an end in May 2018.