Tourists visiting Vienna looking for a tangible souvenir item to bring home to family and friends can get the famous porcelain decors of the Austrian capital. They are world renowned and are beautifully hand crafted with unique designs from the simple to the more intricate ones. Viennese porcelain decorative items are most known for their graceful shapes, clean lines and exquisite details.
Exploring the Porcelain Museum should also be in your itinerary. Situated in the Augarten imperial grounds, the museum is the perfect place to learn about the early beginnings of the Viennese porcelain. The exhibits are divided into the first part (early history) and the second part (covering the 20th and 21st centuries).
First Part
The first part of the exhibition showcases the porcelain pieces of founder Claudius Innocentius du Paquier, a Dutch, covering the periods of Rococo, Classical and Biedermeier with the Kaisersemmel featured in the end. It was in 1718 when the first porcelain factory was founded in Vienna courtesy of du Paquier. The ownership was later transferred to the imperial family in 1744 until 1864.
Second Part
The second portion of the exhibition covers the time when the Vienna Augarten Porcelain Factory was established in 1923 until the present. Among the important designers of the modern era being featured here are Josef Hoffman, Walter Bosse and Hertha Bucher (1920s and 1930s). Simple designs that were popular in the 1950s and works done from the 1970s can also be viewed in the Porcelain Museum. Works of contemporary designers including Philipp Bruni culminate the exhibition.
