The tragedy of Dmitry Vinogradov: How a friend of Lomonosov created Russian porcelain and paid for it with his life

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Two talented student friends - Dmitry Vinogradov and Mikhail Lomonosov … Both made important discoveries in their lives. But if fate was favorable to Lomonosov, and discoveries brought him worldwide fame and success, then Vinogradov for his greatest work did not receive a single, even the smallest, gratitude and died in poverty when he was only 38 years old.

Dmitry was born in ancient Suzdal in about 1720, all of his childhood passed here. Father, a priest of the Nativity Cathedral of the Mother of God, noticing his son's inclination to science, sent him to study in Moscow at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, which at that time was the only higher educational institution in Russia. There Dmitry was in the same class with Mikhail Lomonosov. They soon became best friends, both were very talented. Later they were sent to continue their education in St. Petersburg at the Academy of Sciences created by that time by the decree of Peter I. In 1736, they were both selected to study mining and metallurgy in Germany. Dmitry was then only 16 years old.

Eight years later, Dmitry returned to Russia. Here he brilliantly passed the certification, receiving the title of mining engineer (bergmeister). But the young engineer had to work in a completely different direction. By order of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, he was involved in the secret work of making porcelain.

For a long time, starting from the 6th century, they knew how to make porcelain only in China. In Europe, they were able to obtain it only in the 18th century thanks to German alchemists who worked on this for more than a dozen years. The secret of Saxon porcelain was also carefully hidden.

The empress dreamed of creating domestic porcelain (why are we worse than the Germans?). For this purpose, the German Gunger was invited to St. Petersburg, Baron Cherkasov was appointed to look after him, and Vinogradov was appointed as the assistant to the German. "". In addition, while studying in Germany, he got acquainted with the equipment used in the production of porcelain.

But Gunger turned out to be a real swindler. With Vinogradov, he did not share anything and for two whole years fooled everyone. Without waiting for the promised porcelain, Gunger was kicked out, and instead of him the work was entrusted to Vinogradov. And he coped with it brilliantly - in a short time he managed to get porcelain that was not inferior in quality to Chinese.

And although his path to this discovery was incredibly difficult - after all, there were no ready-made recipes, everything had to be reached by the most experimental way - to select clay, paints, glaze for painting, firing mode, - by the age of 27 Dmitry had already received his first sample.

To keep his developments a secret, Dmitry made all the recordings using a mixture of several languages - Latin, Hebrew, German …

It would seem that after this greatest discovery Vinogradov should have awaited fame and awards. But that was not the case at all. From now on, his whole life was subordinated only to work, Cherkasov did not let him out anywhere, only demanded more porcelain from him … Vinogradov was already cursing his discovery. Cherkasov went so far as to order Vinogradov to be chained near the stove so that he could not escape and reveal his secret. It happened that he was flogged with whips along with the apprentices, if something went wrong. Dmitry, by nature a light, cheerful and freedom-loving person with high self-esteem, could not tolerate such humiliation and bullying. He soon fell ill and died.

Only nine of his products have survived to this day - the thinnest cups and snuff boxes with the monogram "W". And they are in the Hermitage and the Russian Museum.

In his native Suzdal, one of the streets in the city center, not far from the Kremlin, is named after him.

But what was Mikhailo Lomonosov - Russian man who overtook enlightened Europe.