Rörstrand was Sweden's first ceramics factory. As early as 1726, production started at Rörstrand Castle in Stockholm, with dreams of real porcelain, the white gold. The factory's success grew instead with blue-painted faience and Rococo flower-decorated ornaments.
During the 19th century, Rörstrand developed into one of Europe's most modern porcelain factories with high-class production of crockery with romantic landscape patterns, decorative pieces and tile kilns. in the early 20th century, the factory won international success with its exclusive art nouveau ceramics.
After 200 years in Stockholm, Rörstrand moved to Gothenburg, where the classic Grön Anna was born. In the 1930s, Lidköping became the home of the factory. Here, prominent ceramists such as Marianne Westman, Gunnar Nylund and Carl Harry Stålhane have left their mark on popular crockery and beautiful works of art. Tableware such as Swedish Grace, Ostindia and Mon Amie are still manufactured and can be found in many Swedish homes.
In 1726, the manufacture of porcelain started at Rörstrand Castle in Stockholm. The success of the porcelain factory began with the first blue-painted patterns and the multi-colored, flower-decorated faience of the Rococo.
During the early 20th century, Rörstrand was a major industry that won international success, but everything started from Lidköping on the shores of Lake Vänern. Prominent ceramicists such as Gunnar Nylund and Marianne Westman have worked here.
The big book about Rörstrand is a beautiful and richly illustrated masterpiece, written by reputable researchers and writers.
The big book on Rörstrand provides an updated and expanded description of the most important player in Swedish ceramic manufacturing, both in terms of household goods and utility porcelain and art ceramics within the entire production of faience, flintware, porcelain and stoneware. The book provides a broad overview of the factory's productions over the years, while putting these into their historical context and reporting the factory's importance in Swedish design. Important parts of Swedish industrial and design history from the beginning of the 18th century to the 21st century are reflected here. Alongside the glass industry, the ceramic industry played a major role in spreading Swedish design and Swedish ideas around the world by participating in a long series of exhibitions. It took place during a large part of the 20th century, starting during the Art Nouveau era, over functionalism and Scandinavian Design. Here you get a deeper insight into that history. Rörstrand stands for a long, exciting and often artistically advanced tradition in ceramics and porcelain, nowadays as a profile company within the Fiskars group.
Many have heard of Rörstrand and Rörstrand's porcelain factory. However, not as many people know that the production started in a castle outside what was then Stockholm.
It was in June 1726 that twenty dedicated and wealthy porcelain enthusiasts in Stockholm entered into an "Association Contract between all the stakeholders in the Swedish Porcelain works that will be established in Stora Rörstrand after the Delft one".
It began with the manufacture of faience, which began in 1726 in and near Rörstrand Castle northwest of Stockholm. After a few test firings, the first, more official test firing of the new "porcelain" took place in August of the following year in one of the new kilns in the south castle wing. The production had successes and setbacks. There were great difficulties in getting stable production up and running, but then came aesthetic successes. A highlight is the colorful faience of the late Rococo. Towards the end of the 18th century, they switched to an English-type flintware, and a few decades into the 19th century, production was completely oriented towards "the potteries" in Staffordshire, and from there they sourced foremen, workers and technology, and both models and patterns. "Genuine" porcelain was first taken up in 1857. Over the years, Rörstrand has had a strong position in Swedish porcelain manufacturing, and at the turn of the last century the company was also one of Sweden's ten largest companies.
After two hundred years, when the growing stone city surrounded the factory area in Stockholm and limited the development possibilities, they had to move the business and chose Gothenburg and Hisingen. During the 1930s, production was gradually moved to newly built premises in Lidköping next to the sister company ALP. Throughout the 20th century, Rörstrand has had a leading position, independently or in various forms of cooperation with other ceramic companies. During the journey, a number of companies have been incorporated under the Rörstrand brand – Marieberg, Arabia, Gothenburg, Lidköping, Hackefors and now most recently Höganäs.
The factory has been threatened with closure many times. In the autumn of 2005, on December 22 at 01:30, however, the tunnel furnace at the factory in Lidköping was closed. Thus, production at Rörstrand's own factory ceased. The company - Rörstrand and its strong brand - will, however, survive with design and product development at Fiskars on a freelance basis and a manufacturing that is "outsourced" to e.g. Hungary and Southeast Asia. Rörstrand's history will live on in Rörstrand's Museum in Lidköping.