Vilmos Zsolnay

Potter and manufacturer

Hungarian manufacturer whose porcelain factory at Pécs invented the shimmering eosin glaze.

Vilmos Zsolnay took over his family’s pottery at Pécs and made it one of Europe’s great factories.

The eosin glaze, developed with the chemist Vince Wartha in 1893, gave pots a metallic sheen; the factory’s frost-proof tiles and roof ceramics adorn Budapest.

• Zsolnay vase with eosin glaze