Slipcasting

All pieces that cannot be shaped on the potter's wheel are cast by hand. To this end, the so-called "slip", the liquefied porcelain paste, is filled in plaster moulds, which may be used up to 15 times. These moulds, which are frequently built up from many "wedges", extract the water from the slip during the casting process and thus compress it to create the porcelain. Many Nymphenburg sets and figures are made up of many individual pieces some groups of figures comprise up to 100 complicated objects the Frankenthaler chandelier, for instance, even contains 20000 separate pieces. These are cast individually, dried and carefully assembled in the modelling shop on the basis of original models. This is also where leaves and flowers, garlands and thorns are formed by hand and applied individually with a scalpel to hedges, trees, crucifixes and tureens. The knowledge of how many separate pieces need to be produced to create a figure has been passed down without interruption at Nymphenburg since the 18th century. Such production requires careful hands that are able to assemble the individual pieces through a skilled balance of pressure and gentleness.