In 1853, Johann Friedrich Andreas Kister, a Mr. Dressel and one other associate purchased a factory of apparent little consequence in Passau/Bavaria. They named this factory DRESSEL, KISTER & CIE.
Nine years before, in 1844, Mr. Dressel and Mr. Kister had already acquired a porcelain factory in Scheibe-Alsbach/Thuringia and helped this factory to a remarkable economic boom. In 1863 August Wilhelm Fridolin Kister (A.W.Fr. Kister), the son of Johann Friedrich Andreas Kister, became proprietor of the Scheibe-Alsbach factory.
Johann Friedrich Andreas Kister is said to have purchased the factory in Passau/Bavaria for his daughter Therese, whose husband Jacob Stark, a business partner to her father, passed away the following year. Therese remarried in 1856 to Wilhelm Lenck, son a porcelain painter from Thuringia, who was an expert in the manufacture of porcelain.
The Passau factory became a family-owned enterprise under the leadership of Wilhelm Lenck. He succeeded in helping the factory to obtain world fame. Dressel & Kister Cie. exported their porcelain all over the world with France and Italy as the largest buyers in the early years. When his son Rudolf took over the firm already employed 300 workers. In the following years it became the largest commercial enterprise in that city and the Lenck family was one of the wealthiest families in Passau. Porcelain from the Lenck factory was shipped all over the world and awarded with numerous prizes. The factory committed a designer from Italy, Fillipo Cifariello. He came from Capodimonte/Naples and received a princely salary. Considered a great artist, he created lively and elegant figurines. However, the hot-blooded South Italian was also accused in 1907 in Rome/Italy of having killed his French wife.
Rudolf Lenck had shortly before died at the age of 44 years. His widow Lina Lenck took over and was able to increase the sales despite the chaos of war. She sold the manufactory in 1919 to the Aelteste Volkstedter porcelain factory AG (=stock corporation). The factory now operated under the name AELTESTE VOLKSTEDTER PORZELLANFABRIK AG, branch ROSENAU near PASSAU, former DRESSEL, KISTER & CIE., and even established a department “Passauer Porzellankunst” (Artistic Porcelain of Passau) with renowned designers like Ernst Derra (he is said to have created the medieval figurines in c. 1907), Fritz Schlesinger and Erich Böhm. Technical director and art director from 1920 onwards was Carl Graser from Volkstedt.
Even more damaging than the war was the economic situation of the 1920s and 1930s (worldwide economic crisis), when luxury and artistically figurines of the kind made by the company were not in demand. Furthermore the nearby china clay deposits were exhausted caused by overexploitation. The factory went bankrupt in 1936 and was acquired by the City of Passau. In three little rooms ten workers tried to keep up the business. Fallen into obscurity the factory finally ceased to exist in 1952.