Český Porcelán Dubí - Czech Republic

Český Porcelán Dubí was founded in 1864 by Anton Tschinkel. It started as a maiolica manufacture (maiolica is tin-glazed pottery decorated in bright colours). Since 1874 it has also been producing porcelain.

In 1885 the factory was bought by the owner of German manufacture C Teichart and production of porcelain similar to German Meissen has been started. Patterns deriving from Meissen tradition have been applied. Dubí was the first Czech factory which has started a production of porcelain decorated with 'onion pattern'.

In 1895 Bernard Bloch z B Bloch & Co taken over the manufacture and in 1920 the factory changed its name to Eichwald Porcelain and Stove Factory Bloch & Co.

In 1939 Nazis confiscated the factory and sold it to Dr H Widera & Co of Thuringia (Germany). Until 1945 it was present as Eichwald Porcelain and Stove Factory Widera & Co.

Two years after the end of the war the manufacture became a part of Czech Duchovský Porcelán, together with Royal Dux and Count Thun (all of them kept using their original signatures). In 1958 Duchovský Porcelán was incorporated into Karlovarský Porcelán.

At the dawn of the sixties, manufacture’s policy concentrated mainly on modernization of the production process. The aim was to simplify the production and, at the same time, increase its effectiveness. Working conditions have been optimized and environment friendly technologies have been introduced.

In 1991 the factory was privatized and labeled as Český porcelán Dubi and in 1997 it became the main shareholder of Manufaktura Royal Dux Bohemia (Duchov).

In my collection I have three Český porcelán Dubí thimbles decorated with traditional ‘onion pattern’. Two of those are signed with a crown, a letter D and Czechoslovakia inscription. The remaining one was created after Czech and Slovakia became separate countries – it is signed only with a letter D and a crown (form of the signature after 1993).

The interesting thing about those thimbles is that two older ones were two times cheaper than the newer one. Bought by my parents during the stay at Slovakia, surprisingly were treated by the seller not as a precious reminder of the times when Czech and Slovakia were one country but as uninteresting old junk he could get rid of.

Writing this article I used information found at Český porcelán Dubí web site and at Ginni’s site about Czech and Czechoslovakian porcelain.

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