Louis Gerverot

Louis Victor Gerverot ( born December 8, 1747 in Luneville, France, † January 6, 1829 in Bevern, County Holzminden ) was a French businessman and porcelain painter. From 1797 to 1814 he headed the Fürstenberg porcelain manufactory in the Principality of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel.

Life and work

The son of a musician learned the porcelain crafts and worked until 1795 in various European porcelain factories, including in 1766 /67, Fürstenberg.

In 1797 he was appointed head of the Fürstenberg porcelain manufactory was transferred, which was located at that time in an economic crisis. Gerverot it, the manufactory to create that new boom in the early 19th century succeeded. He initiated improvements in operational processes. He also raised the artistic level of porcelain products and led the Empire style in Fürstenberg.

The most important customers of the Fürstenberg porcelain belonged to the court of Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, and brother of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.Gerverot succeeded to interest Jérôme for the Fürstenberg porcelain products. Fürstenberg was elevated to the rank of a " Manufacture Royale " and made for Jerome's court elaborate decorative porcelain as well as objects in the Empire style.

Because of its good relations with the Westphalian farm Gerverot in 1814 accused by the Brunswick Government as a collaborator of the ousted in the meantime, Jérôme. The management of the porcelain manufactory was taken from him. Between 1815 and 1825 he was director of the faience factory Wrisbergholzen. In recognition of his services to him the Brunswick government approved in 1820, a guest house and a right to live in Bevern Castle. Gerverot died in 1829.

In 2008, an exhibition at the Museum Schloss Wilhelm of Kassel praised the close ties between Gerverot and his Fürstenberg porcelain manufactory with King Jérôme and the Westphalian farm. Gerverots Fürstenberg porcelain was characterized " as part of table culture and art space of time."