Zsolnay, the king of ceramics

The Zsolnay brand is a mysterious entity in the history of Hungarian art. The tradition of the unique production techniques goes back to 161 years. Even though the porcelain products of Zsolnay are made in factories, they reflect the elegance and quality of the pieces of fine art. That is why these china plates, cups, pots and other pieces of ceramics can be easily differentiated from others. 

Though the technology improved by time, the style remained the same through more than one and a half centuries. The brand has always attracted the greatest scientists and artists of each era. There were known geniuses working in the factory, like József Rippl-Rónai, Ferenc Martyn, Victor Vasarely or Ödön Lechner.

The factory was founded by Vilmos Zsolnay, a potter from Pécs, who wanted to bring innovation into his profession.

He invested an enormous amount of money, time and work into his vision, and cooperated with the best experts he could invite. Their inventions were the Zsolnay porcelain, eosin and the pyrogranite. The artists of the factory combined Eastern motifs with the current period’s style.

Sándor Apáti Abt and Lajos Mack merged the style of Secession and the unique technology named eosin. The most iconic technology of the factory was developed in the 1890s.

Eosin — which means “the light of the dawn” in Greek — uses glittering ceramic glaze to emphasize certain parts of the whole product with glimmer.

The other new technology of the brand was pyrogranite, an antifreeze type of ceramics. This material was applied by Ödön Lechner and Marcell Komor in architecture in the form of pyrogranite tiles. The buildings of the Budapest Industrial Design Museum, Matthias Church and the Geological and Geophysical Institute of Hungary are great examples for the usage of this technology. We can also find representatives abroad: the Hungarian Embassy in Berlin and the Mexican Fine Arts Museum also feature ceramics decoration and eosin roof, respectively.