1*02 MANUFACTUBES OF RUSSIA. 



and porcelain plates, which gained the preponderancy over other specialities of the 

 ceramic trade, such as the making' of pipes, melting pots, pots, jugs and moulds for 

 sugar loaves, which were formerly in use. The general character of the earthenware 

 and porcelain trade, developed here in this Russian Staffordshire in the hands of house- 

 liold workmen, depended tirstly on the fact that it answered to the needs of the people 

 in general, having like the other branches of the industry in view first the cheapness 

 and practicability of the wares. Plates of the so-called semi-earth, made of local clay 

 in Gzhel itself and glazed with lead, were sold at 30 to 35 kopecks per dozen, and the 

 iiuality was not bad. To order, such good porcelain wares were so well produced, as 

 for example, at the establishment in the village Rechitsy, that the middlemen, buy- 

 ing them from the peasant makers in Gzhel, sold them as foreign goods, which 

 according to the custom of the times raised their value. 



The great production of plates at the factories in Gzhel was followed by the 

 establishment of the painting industry concentrated in special workshops. The 

 manufactories gave the plates to these shops to be painted, the payment therefor 

 being by the piece. Special workshops for preparing paints, used in the muffle painting 

 on porcelain, were also organized. Both of these kinds of workshops, forming branches 

 of the regular factories were founded and managed as those by the peasant workmen, 

 a fact showing plainly w^ith what knowledge and how steadily the trade was 

 organized in this locality. Gzhel is the birth place of ceramics in Russia, but it lost 

 much of its importance with the settling of the industry near large manufacturing 

 centres established in different localities of Russia. 



The household production of pottery was in the most flourishing condition at the 

 l)eriod from 1830 to 1860 ; the immense factories of earthenware and porcelain be- 

 longing to M. S. Kousnetsov owe their prosperity to the Gzhel, in which this firm 

 has been for many years one of the most important. 



The production of white plates in Gzhel dates from the latter century and the 

 Moscow porcelain factory of Gardner had undoubtedly a favourable influence upon 

 its development, although there are other data showing that, just at the time when 

 Gardner's factory was founded, porcelain clay had been brought to Gzhel from 

 Gloukhov, government of Chernigov as described in Materials of Household Indus- 

 try, by Meschersky and Modzalevsky, St. Petersburg, 1871. 



The decline of the household industry towards 1860 was in a certain degree 

 due to the raising of the prices of fuel in the locality to an extent that made it 

 impossible for the kustars to continue the production of cheap wares with a profit. 

 Thus, in the beginning of this period when all the trades of Russia tended to devel- 

 opment and the general activity with regard to large manufacturing undertakings 

 was noticeable, the household industry, centred in Gzhel owing to circumstances, 

 in the hands of its most powerful representatives gave birth to vast manufactories 

 in different towns of Russia. However, the production still continues in the locality 

 of Gzhel in the form of a household industry, having some importance with regard lo 

 the making of plates as well as to that of bricks and pipes. The clays of the Gzhel 

 also furnish the necessary material for making pipes, bricks, paving plates and tiles 

 to some of the factories situated in Moscow vicinity; for example, to the large brick 

 and pottery manufactory of the architect S. E. Ovannesianz, formerly that of 

 N. B. Stepanov, 30 versts distant from Moscow. 



