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The earliest porcelain from the Vienna Porcelain Factory was described as
inferior copies of the popular Meissen porcelains. However, as the factory began to
flourish under the ownership of the state and the management of Baron von Sorgenthal
from 1784-1805, improvements in the techniques for modeling and especially
decoration were made, finally setting the Vienna Porcelain Factory apart from the other factories.
The decorative department at the factory was broken into four departments:
historical and landscape painting, flower painting, ornamental, and blue painting, which
had a special class for gilding. The artists themselves were drawn from the Academy of Art and were constantly experimenting with enamel colors, painting, and gilding
techniques, to create accurately captured scenes, like the cottage scene on this plate, or decorative motifs seen on the spiral decorated plate. Gilded decoration was another area where the Vienna Porcelain Factory excelled; developing a technique with light
relief designs that were covered with heavily tooled gold leaf giving it the effect of
carved metalwork. After Sorgenthal, the factory declined; the importance of artistic excellence began to ebb and these highly decorative techniques were all but forgotten.