RS Prussia first captured the hearts of Victorian America in the 1880-1910 period, making it a relatively modern porcelain. Yet despite its recent vintage, the imaginatively molded bowls, pitchers, and dishes bearing the red wreath and star mark of RS Prussia continue to attract admirers and are often as costly as older pieces of Meissen or Sevres.

Two brothers, Erdmann and Reinhold Schlegelmilch, established porcelain factories in the 1860s in the Germanic region known prior to WWI as Prussia. Each produced high quality products under a variety of marks, those of Erdmann usually prefaced by ES and those of Reinhold with RS. Erdmann founded his factory several years prior to his brother; however, it was apparently smaller and examples of his porcelain are rarer (probably because little was imported to the US). Though produced at the same time as RS Prussia, ES Crown and Royal Saxe do not command the same kinds of prices, although all is collected today.

Much of the interest in RS Prussia lies in the molds used to produce these delicate pieces. Molds were sometimes produced in one of the RS factories and sent to another for the beautiful, hand applied decoration so closely associated with these products. The factory decorating the pieces also was responsible for affixing the company logo, the famous RS Prussia wreath mark which was adopted by Rienhold around 1880. A lot of RS Prussia pieces were never actually marked, but collectors can often identify them by a particular shape  known to be a mold used in a particular RS factory. Since unmarked pieces usually are priced far below marked items, it pays to research the molds before shopping.

Many offshoots of RS Prussia also bear the familiar wreath and star. RS Suhl pieces date from the early 1900s, and were produced at the Schlegelmilch factory in Suhl.  Later wreath logos were marked RS Germany, RS Tillowitz, and RS Silesia. After WWII, the Tillowitz factory came under the administration of the Polish government, producing wares marked RS Poland from 1945-1956.

For collectors wishing to learn more about RS Prussia porcelain and its related lines, an excellent book is Mary Frank Gaston's Collector's Encyclopedia of RS Prussia, containing illustrations of marks, identification of popular molds, and numerous color pictures of typical RS Prussia production. -by Barbara Williams Sackett