Conference: Sacred Ceramics – Devotional Images in European Porcelain

[Paul Ferguson]

"Was eighteenth-century European porcelain just a ceramic material to be moulded into useful objects – or could it mean more? This conference explores what European porcelain might have communicated when it was used to create devotional objects... Porcelain’s alchemical heritage was also not without significance: success at the alchemical enterprise had always been deemed dependent on divine favour. These factors could lead to porcelain assuming a sacral character in Catholic court contexts. Devotional images in European porcelain exploited these cultural associations of the medium itself."

https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/0NP9lyz9Ew/s...ember-2025