The Arcanum (18 page)

The obvious way to gain regular and relatively unrestricted admission to the factory was by joining the Meissen staff and
having a studio inside the castle. But for financial reasons Herold was reluctant to give up his freelance status. He was
still being paid piecemeal according to the volume of porcelain he decorated and this arrangement was proving extremely lucrative—his
income was already considerable, and as he saw it his profits could only rise as his flourishing studio grew. His objective,
therefore, was to persuade the Meissen authorities that it would be in their interests to allow him to move the studio into
the factory while still remaining an independent decorator. With this in mind he compiled a forceful argument.

Giving him rooms inside the Albrechtsburg would, he pointed out, reduce the considerable number of breakages caused when the
fragile porcelain was transported from the factory to his studio at Nohr's and back, over the rough cobbles. In addition the
porcelain secret would remain more secure. At present there was a risk that outsiders might somehow gain access to his workshops
and abscond with samples of enamels. If his studio and assistants were under the same strict supervision as the rest of the
Meissen employees this danger could be eliminated. At the same time there was no need for Meissen to incur extra costs by
paying his and his staffs salaries. He was happy to go on as before, being paid according to his work and covering the costs
of his workers himself.

The reasoning was evidently persuasive and the Meissen directorate, keen to attach the talented decorator as firmly as they
could, agreed to let him retain his independence yet work inside the factory. In October 1722, not much more than two years
after his arrival in Meissen, he was given a room within the castle walls for his own use. A fortnight later more space was
found on the second floor, away from the rest of the Meissen workforce, and the whole studio, three workers and one apprentice,
moved over before the winter's bitter chill descended on the town.

As part of the agreement, the Meissen authorities had undertaken to make sure that Herold's rooms were comfortably fitted
out. Saxon winters were piercing and the Albrechtsburg, perched on top of a sheer cliff face, was constantly exposed to the
worst extremes of weather. Herold, with characteristic attention to every detail, stipulated that his workroom had to be fitted
with a new stove and that he would be guaranteed a good supply of firewood—all at Meissen's expense, even though he was not
on the payroll. He was, it seems, always susceptible to cold, firewood was expensive and one cannot help suspecting that,
with his usual concern for studio efficiency and his own profit, this condition was also included because he realized that
his craftsmen would paint their minutely detailed decorations better if their fingers were not numb.

As Christmas and the new year approached Herold must have reflected happily to himself that even though his workshop was isolated
from the compounders he was inside the castle and therefore ideally poised to gain the knowledge he craved.

Stölzel and Köhler, on the other hand, were still incorrigibly envious of each other; Köhler remained obsessively worried
that should he collaborate with anyone his position would be irrevocably weakened. He steadfastly refused to pass on any of
his discoveries to the authorities or to work in a team with the other arcanists, and was increasingly unreliable about supplying
colors to Herold's artists.

Stölzel, by contrast, seems from the outset to have cooperated quite willingly with Herold. The two had a long-standing alliance
since their Vienna days. Stölzel had been severely shaken by the experience of his dramatic flight from Vienna and his fears
about the fate that awaited him on his return to Saxony but, once pardoned, he had quickly reintegrated into the Meissen workforce
and, to Herold's delight, was making significant advances in color compounding.

Since his return Stölzel had busied himself in developing ground colors—enamels that could be used to cover the main body
leaving windows of white for Herold's decoration. By the early 1720s he had already found recipes for black, brown and yellow,
all of which were much admired by the king. Herold, realizing the importance of Stölzel's cooperation, treated him with the
same delicacy he accorded to the most precious and fragile piece of porcelain. The two traveled together to Freiberg, the
Saxon mining center, to inspect new mineral deposits—essential for developing new colors—and to arrange for supplies to Meissen.
Herold almost certainly used the opportunity of this journey to glean as much information as he could from Stölzel.

But Köhler, who held the key to more colored enamels than anyone else, was far less easy to win around. His laboratory door
remained firmly locked while he worked—no one was allowed to watch or assist in his experiments or compounding, and no one
was allowed to glance at his journal or workbook where the details of his experiments were meticulously recorded. He perceived
Herold as the ally of his chief rival, Stölzel—after all the two had worked together in Vienna. Sharing information with him
would therefore be tantamount to handing it to the enemy, something he had no intention of doing.

Herold, however, had few scruples when it came to furthering his career. Hiding his feelings of irritation under a veneer
of friendliness, he must have told himself that sooner or later his luck would turn. He had succeeded thus far in maneuvering
himself into the inner sanctum of the Meissen factory. In such a position, an opportunity would eventually arise for him to
appropriate Köhler's formulas. It was now just a question of waiting.

In the meantime, Herold's progress and the fact that he was now working within the king's factory had whetted Augustus's voracious
appetite for still more porcelain. He wanted vast numbers of ornamental pieces for his new porcelain palace and similarly
gargantuan amounts of tableware for his lavish banquets. Flatware such as plates and dishes was only just beginning to be
made in quantities, and Augustus put in orders for huge services in which every course would have its own specially designed
dishes. He was also becoming progressively more hungry for imitations of yet another of his porcelain manias—Japanese kakiemon.

Arguably the most refined type of Oriental porcelain available at the time, and certainly the most expensive, kakiemon porcelain
had been made in Japan from the late seventeenth century. Named after the legendary Sakaida Kakiemon, a brilliant Oriental
artist from a large family of potters, who was believed to have invented colored enameling in Japan, kakiemon was produced
in the Arita district of Japan—the country's porcelain-making center—where its other famous exports, such as rich, brocade-like
Imari porcelain and delicate blue and white porcelain, were also made.

To Augustus's jaded eye kakiemon was a porcelain of potent and compelling contrasts. Jewel-like in its intense clear bright
colors, it was nonetheless painted in a severely limited palette of blue, turquoise, iron red, purple and black. Its decoration
was supremely sophisticated, featuring asymmetrical scenes of prunus and pine through which tigers prowled and kimonoed beauties
fluttered among birds and butterflies. Their delicacy was enhanced by their spareness and by the expanses of pure white porcelain
against which they stood.

Augustus was enormously proud of his immense collection of carefully accumulated kakiemon treasures. But much as he admired
their perfection he longed for his own factory's products to surpass them—and this majestic demand was now passed on to Herold.

But once again Herold found his progress barred by the problem of Köhler's refusal to cooperate on the colors.

As the winter gave way to the new year of 1723 and spring approached, Herold, struggling with the limited palette available,
tried to urge Stölzel and Köhler to supply him with the new brighter shades he needed, and, probably out of sheer desperation,
began his own experiments into color compounding based on what little he had learned so far.

Research of this kind was new to Herold and progress at first was slow. While he struggled long into the night in the laboratory
to come to grips with the unfamiliar art, fate intervened to give his ambitions a helping hand.

Worn out by the constant demands that he share his discoveries, and by the arduous working conditions, Köhler fell gravely
ill. As with so many others who worked in the factory, his health was probably damaged by chemical poisoning from the toxic
fumes to which he was constantly exposed. During his final three bedridden days, Stölzel and Herold, each desperate to be
the first to get their hands on the secret book of recipes for colored enamels locked in the cupboard in his bedchamber, took
turns keeping vigil over him as he tossed and fretted.

Neither man dared to take the key and unlock the secret cupboard while Köhler lived, perhaps fearing that he might recover
enough to inform the Meissen authorities if they did so. Köhler's health was, however, beyond redemption. On April 30, 1723,
a member of the Meissen administration received a message from Herold informing him that Köhler had died during the night.
Herold was present at the deathbed and said that just before Köhler had breathed his last he had told Herold that he was entrusting
him with a most valuable possession—his book of secret recipes. According to Herold, he had then been handed the key to the
secret cupboard in the wall and instructed to take out the book.

Whether or not this conversation actually took place will never be known, but it seems highly probable that during the night,
while the corpse of his obstructive colleague lay still warm beside him, Herold pored over the secret formulas, jotting down
as many as he could in his own notebook and, perhaps, even removing the pages on which the most important recipes were recorded.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the commissioner was highly suspicious of Herold's account and sickened at the thought that
even death could not dampen his ambition. On behalf of the authorities he hastily removed the book from Herold's grasp and
placed it in the factory's strong room for safekeeping—it remains in the archive to this day.

No one noticed that several pages on which the most important formulas had been written were missing, apparently cut from
the book. The loss was only discovered fifteen years later, by which time Herold's position in the Meissen hierarchy was unassailable.

To make red: its method of preparation. Take some English calamine, which is the best and to be had from any apothecary. Grind
it small, and turn it into an earthenware bowl. Cover it with water and leave to stand for two or three days until it has
dissolved.… Then you must put it into a crucible over a charcoal fire. Cover the crucible and leave it to glow for a quarter
of an hour. It will then be a fine red.

From J. G. H
EROLD'S
notebooks

F
rom the moment Herold plucked Köhler's secrets from his dying grip his progress was meteoric. In his cramped quarters in the
Albrechtsburg he had dreamed of creating colors as vivid and as varied as those which an artist might mix upon his palette.
Now the notes he had so questionably commandeered gave his research a massive boost. He rapidly emerged as a supremely and,
it appeared, an intuitively talented color compounder, effortlessly solving the problems that had baffled the factory for
the last two decades.

With an energy fired by his still unbridled ambition, Herold frenetically ground, dissolved, crystallized, filtered and mixed
his compounds. He mingled calamine with water to produce red as livid as the skins of cherries; he dissolved golden ducats
in aqua regia (nitric and hydrochloric acids) to produce a blushing pink copper luster that Böttger had also made; he discovered
compounds of iron that would create brown and, at certain temperatures, a delicate shade of green. All the while, with the
eye of the true analyst, he scrutinized and logged every nuance of change in his notebooks.

As if by magic the elusive colors that Köhler and Stölzel had devoted a lifetime to inventing emerged in the crucibles and
vials around him. Yet, as he triumphantly recorded the results in the burgeoning book of formulas, the exhilaration he felt
remained secondary to his overriding aim. The knowledge he was gaining was merely a means to shake free of reliance on other
color chemists, a potent weapon that might be used to intimidate the factory administrators—and ultimately gain sway over
the king himself.

Over the decade that followed Herold conjured no fewer than sixteen new colored enamels, many of which have never really been
improved on and remain much prized secrets today, and also developed the muffle kiln—a cooler furnace better suited to firing
colored enamels. With the ease of a master necromancer he created turquoise as delicate as the celadons in the king's collection,
livid egg yolk yellow, a startlingly vivid pea green, intense aquamarine, a resplendent red, delicate lilac and claret as
deep as garnet, a kaleidoscopic spectrum that infused the painting of his porcelain with newfound radiance.