Bowl

The Porcelain Manufactory in Ćmielów, founded by Count Jacek Małachowski, is one of the oldest manufactories in Poland. Although it has undergone many organisational transformations over the two centuries of its existence, it is still a rare example of continuity in the production of a single factory and thus can still delight subsequent generations with its products.

Ćmielów became famous for producing faience table suits and figurines and decorating with copperplate printing. A surviving receipt from the Szczuczyński Archive, dating from 1849-1850 and held in the collection of the Czartoryski Library in Kraków, allows even determining its introduction date. Moreover, the number of faience wares with printed decorations preserved in Ćmielów shows that their production was popular.

The manufactory produced crockery with decorations inspired by English faience with the popular two-colour pattern. Therefore, it is not surprising that the decorations on the bowls, plates, openwork baskets, jugs and saucepans referred to floral motifs and idyllic genre and landscape scenes in black. A blue print with a pattern of volutes and flowered rose and carnation twigs covered the outside of the semi-circular bowl on a low, round foot. In the mirror of the bowl, one can see a genre scene depicting a young girl in a garden with elements of small architecture, in black.