The history of the company Starorolský porcelán Moritz Zdekauer, a.s.

Brief History of the Company.

The factory was established in the year 1810, situated in Stara Role close to Karlovy Vary. During that time, the owner of the porcelain factory situated in Dalovice was Benedikt Hassler who bought the lands on the left bank of the river Rolava. On this piece of land, he constructed the mill for the raw material, two buildings and one round furnace.

In this manufacture, Benedikt Hassler introduced the production of stoneware.

In 1824, Augustin Nowotny – a businessman from Prague re-situated the factory on the right bank of the river Rolava. He extended the production, employed 100 workers and started to sell the products through the warehouses in Prague, Vienna and Pest. Despite the trade, Nowotny felt that in time to come, there was less chance of prosperity in stoneware.

For this reason, in 1836, he changed the factory production programme and started to manufacture porcelain.

Our actual importance and good reputation is due to the forward thinking of Emanuel Nowotny who continued extending the factory. By 1870, there were already 800 people working in the company.

At the end of the 19th century, due to the influence of the slump, the factory was bought in auction by the bank house – Moritz Zdekauer from Prague. They managed to restart the factory’s ability to export and began to sell to USA, South America, Holland and Dutch colonies.

In 1909m, the factory was taken over by the German Porcelain group C.M. Hutschenreuter. They took advantage of the fact that the trademark with the intials “M.Z” was already well recognized and accepted on the market.

The trademark of the Eagle with the royal crown and the initials M Z are used up to this day.

After the 2nd world war, in October 1945, the porcelain factory was nationalized and thereafter the factory passed through different organizations.

In 1958, the factory was incorporated in the national enterprise Karlovarsky Porcelan.

In 1992, the factory as privatized and was an established stock company known as Starorolsky Porcelan Moritz Zdekauer,a.s.

The first chairman of the executive board and also the director of the company being Anton Salva. Tne company Moritz Zdekauer,spol.s.r.o. Praha and Ceska Pojistovna, a.s Praha are nowadays the biggest shareholders.