The beginning?
The beginning of Royal Copenhagen as we know it today was in 1775 by Queen Juliane Marie.
However I would like to invite you back a couple of decades to the 1750’s. At this time the popular King Frederik V ruled Denmark. He was married to Louise of Great Britan, who passed away in 1751.
In 1752 King Frederik V married again, this time to Juliane Marie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
At the time, a lot of factories were trying to copy the Chinese way of making real porcelain of “Hard paste”. Due to the value of real porcelain at the time it’s understandable that King Frederik V also wanted to make a porcelain factory of his own.
He build a factory at Christianshavn and got assistance from foreign workmen, doing a lot of attempts to find the magical formula.
Nothing of use were produced there until a Frenchman, Louis Fournier, was asked to take charge of the factory in 1760.
From 1760 to 1766 Fournier ran the factory and about 20 pieces is known to have left the factory in this period. These pieces are identified by having the mark F5 on them. F5 stands for Frederik V.
As these pieces was made of “soft paste”, a lot of people don’t think this is the real beginning of Royal Copenhagen.
The death of King Frederik V in 1766 made Fournier return to France and work in the Factory was stopped.
The next period of the Royal Danish Court was filled with turmoil as King Christian VII most likely suffered from schizophrenia and was very unsuitable as a Ruler.
King Christian VIIs stepmother, Queen Juliane Marie, was controlling him from behind the scenes.
In 1773 Frantz Heinrich Müller, a German, presented the first 3 pieces of hard-fired porcelain to King Christian VII.
However the King had very little interest in this and it was only due Queen Juliane Marie’s private secretary, Chancellor Holm who saw possibilities in the venture that the Queen was convinced that it was an opportunity not to be missed! If the venture ended up being a success, surely Queen Juliane Marie would get the credit.
The royal family held all but one share in the new factory, the last share was held by Mr. Müller himself.
On the 13th of March 1775 the company obtained monopoly of manufacturing of porcelain in Denmark.
More interesting parts of the history about Royal Copenhagen to come!