Gotthelf Greiner

Johann Gotthelf Greiner (22 February 1732, Alsbach – 12 August 1797) was a German glassmaker. He is acknowledged as a co-inventor of porcelain.

Biography Greiner was born in an old-established glassmaker’s family in Scheibe-Alsbach, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. He was a descendant of the as Schwabenhans well known Hans Greiner.

Lifework Gotthelf Greiner invented, together with his cousin and brother-in-law, Gottfried Greiner, independently of Johann Friedrich Böttger, over many years of research work, and with a slightly different chemical composition Porcelain.

His entrepreneurship provided the basics for the Turingian porcelain manufacturing. Greiner’s work and those of his sons were connected with the following foundation of porcelain manufacturers:

1751 Porcelain manufacture in Limbach 1760 Porcelain manufacturing cloister Veilsdorf in Veilsdorf 1764 Wallendorf porcelain in Lichte (Wallendorf) 1777 Graf von Henneberg porcelain in Ilmenau 1779 Porcelain manufacturing in Großbreitenbach