In accordance with the Riga Porcelain Museum’s development strategy, the permanent exhibition is being gradually renewed and expanded. The new section offers visitors a more comprehensive insight into the 1950s, a period when Riga’s porcelain factories produced artistically accomplished pieces as well as a wide variety of original works. Until now, the 1950s had been represented only sporadically in the permanent exhibition. The new section provides a more detailed overview of this period and includes several objects from the museum’s collection that have not previously been on public display. The exhibition section has been renovated and modernised with financial support from the Riga State City Municipality.

After the Second World War, two porcelain factories operated in Riga: the Riga Porcelain Factory (RPF, formerly J. K. Jesen’s Porcelain Factory) and the Riga Porcelain and Faience Factory (RPFF, formerly the M. S. Kuznetsov Joint-Stock Company Porcelain, Faience and Earthenware Factory). At the beginning of this period, designs and decorative patterns from the interwar years continued to be widely reproduced. However, in 1953, artistic laboratories were established at both factories, where artist-designers were tasked with developing original forms and decorative designs for mass production. Within the framework of the planned economy of the USSR, production volumes increased and technologies for decorating porcelain objects were modernised. For the first time, designs created by local artists were introduced into mass production, including Jēkabs Bīne’s “Tauta” dinner service (designed in 1937 at RPFF) and Zina Ulste’s “Laima” dinner service (designed in 1954 at RPF).

The post-war period was also marked by a flourishing of small-scale ceramic sculpture. These works were created both by artists employed by the factories and by independent artists engaged on a contractual basis. Alongside the development of designs intended for production, the factories’ highly skilled specialists created unique objects featuring original forms and decoration for representative purposes or as independent artistic works. The museum’s collection also includes a considerable number of designs adopted for production and embellished with elaborate hand-painted decoration by their creators. These pieces represented Riga’s porcelain factories at local and international industrial and design exhibitions.

The exhibited objects, ranging from functional tableware sets to decorative small-scale sculpture, reflect the fashions, design traditions and developments of the period, while illustrating the transition to subsequent chapters in the history of Riga porcelain. The Riga Porcelain Museum invites everyone interested in this cultural heritage to explore the new thematic section of its permanent exhibition and gain a deeper understanding of the development of porcelain art and industry in Latvia.

Image caption: Decorative vase and perfume set. Designer: Zina Ulste. Riga Porcelain Factory, 1957–1958. Riga Porcelain Museum collection. Photo: Gvido Kajons / Riga Porcelain Museum.