Above: Vivat Bohmen cup and saucer, supposedly the oldest surviving Bohemian porcelain from Klášterec nad Ohří (1794). The cup measures 5.6 cm high.
- Klášterec nad Ohří, was a Bohemian factory founded in 1793, by Mikuláš (Johann Nicolaus) Weber with support from the landowner Count František Josef (Frank Joseph) Thun. The arcanist employed was Johann Gottlieb Sonntag from the Rebengrun factory in Thuringia.
- Together they fired the first kiln on 15th September 1794. This is also the date of the first known and preserved Czech porcelain coffee cup with saucer inscribed Vivat Bohmen (see above).
- The cup and saucer are on display at the Museum of Porcelain at Klášterec Castle.
The Neo-Gothic castle in Klášterec nad Ohří, houses a rare exhibition of porcelain from the collections of the Museum of Applied Arts from the city of Prague in the Czech Republic. The exhibition on the ground-floor hall in the southern wing houses the remnants of the original Renaissance building built in 1600. It offers in its four halls; a brief history of the old Oriental and European porcelain production.
Twenty-one rooms on the 1st floor are dedicated to the development of Czech porcelain production from its beginnings to the present. It includes porcelain ware of individual porcelain factories produced in various periods, such as Empire, Biedermeier, Second Rococo, Neo-Renaissance, Art Nouveau, etc., with examples from the areas of Horní Slavkov, Klášterec, Březová, Loket, Dalovice and Chodov.
The Klášterec Castle was built on a promontory of the river Ohře at the foot of the Ohře Mountains. It is one of the most important historical sites in the north-western region of Bohemia. The name of the castle and town is an Old Czech term for a small monastery (derived from the Latin” claustrellum), which was founded around the year 1250 by Benedictine’s from Postoloprty, in places of the present-day town.
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