A blue colour factory is born - The foundation of the Royal Modum Blue Colour Factory

In view of the important influence that a deposition of blue colours abroad may nowadays have on the state's balance when blue-coloured works are set up at the discovered Cobold passages in Buskerud County, Modum Parish, in the Kingdom of Norway, We have decided to hand over to Our High Treasure Directorate the aforementioned and all the Cobold passages that can be discovered in the area, unless the finder is found to set up and operate the same at his own expense under certain regulations.[1]

Christian VII

Thus began the Cabinet Order of 1 April 1776, which stated that the cobalt trials in Modum had ended and that the Danish-Norwegian state wanted to start extensive cobalt processing in Modum at its own expense. The document was signed by King Christian 7, but due to the king's serious mental illness, the document was also signed by the actual leader of Denmark-Norway, Ove Høeg-Guldberg.

The foundation was the culmination of a few years of promising trial operations at the Skuterud property in Modum. Today, it may seem unbelievable that the road from discovery to start-up was only 3 years and 5 months. In comparison, modern cobalt test mining has been taking place in Modum since 2017.[2] It was probably easier for a sovereign royal power, which did not have to think about environmental considerations, to start such a company than a private company in a democracy where many considerations must be taken into account.

The cobalt discovery itself is well explained by Bjørn Ivar Berg in The cobalt discovery at Modum in 1772, Ole Witloch and the first trial operation, so it will not be summarised here. However, we can't completely avoid the fin.

The quote from the founding document makes it clear that the sovereign state could not override laws and regulations relating to the right of finders. Bjørn Ivar Berg elaborates on this as follows

Cobalt could possibly have been regarded as regale, belonging to the crown, like other precious metals, but a formalisation of the operating rights did not occur during the trial operation.[3]

This meant that the first finder had some kind of right to the find.[4] Witloch had not said anything about asserting his rights, muting, when he presented the cobalt samples in Kongsberg in 1772. As the son of a smallholder and a former convict, it would have been difficult for Witloch to start a business on his own account. Nor can I imagine that he had contacts with people or companies that were wealthy enough to set up operations with him.

Witloch is said to have shown the cobalt samples to The transfer office at Kongsberg.[5] Overbergamtet was responsible for overseeing the mining industry in Norway on behalf of the Danish-Norwegian state.[6] Overbergamtet was responsible for organising the subsequent trial operation at Skuterud.

The problem of the rights to the discovery itself was solved by the Overbergamt by employing Witloch as a sharpener. Witloch received a salary for finding new deposits, but as a government employee, the subsequent discoveries belonged to the state.[7] As an employee, Witloch received an income and good benefits.

Even though Witloch gave up much of his right in this way, questions about finders' rights also arose later in history. In 1783, Witloch asked to be allowed to retire. He asked for far more than he was entitled to. Full pay for the rest of his life. He was granted this in return for relinquishing any right to the find.[8]  

Not only were there concerns about the rights to the actual discovery, but also uncertainty about the extent of the cobalt deposits and what might happen if wealthier people found new cobalt deposits in the area? Berg writes that Overbergamtet gave orders to Mountain Office, the government body that granted the licences, not to grant any future licences for cobalt in the Modum and Ringerike area until Overbergamtet had been informed.[9]

Although these legal disputes, as well as concerns about new cobalt discoveries, may have helped to speed up the foundation, there is no doubt that the main reason was the financial opportunities offered by the cobalt project. Why were the financial prospects good for a cobalt project?

Cobalt - a sought-after product

What made the cobalt discovery in Modum worth investing in? Primarily, it came down to three things: rarity, utilisation and drivability.

As of 1776, viable cobalt deposits were rare. Cobalt was mined in several countries, including Spain, Saxony and Hesse in Germany, Bohemia in the Czech Republic and Sweden, but with the exception of the German states, mining was modest.

It was primarily the Kingdom of Saxony that ran a large-scale and successful cobalt production programme. They did this through their so-called blue colour plant. A blue dye works was a high-tech hybrid operation, in which classic mining operations were combined with glass production to produce blue pigments. What made the operation complicated was that the technology required was attempted to be kept secret. Technology transfer was thus a complicated affair where espionage was often the solution.

Unlike the production of copper, iron or silver, cobalt production consisted of extracting oxides from the cobalt ore, not metal. In fact, it was not known until the 19th century that cobalt was a metal. Until then, it was assumed that cobalt was a so-called semi-metal.[10] The cobalt oxide had to be fused with glass to create the blue colour. Thus, an aspiring cobalt producer had to master a complicated technology to operate successfully.

In 1776, the blue dye works' production was primarily twofold. Their main product was narrow. Smalt is a powdered cobalt-coloured blue glass. The powder's particle size and cobalt content gave it different shades of blue. These were used for enamel colours in glass and ceramic production, and to prevent discolouration in paper, textiles and starch. It was also used to some extent as a paint colour.

The blue colour plants also produced safflower. This product was not a finished pigment, but a cobalt concentrate consisting of cobalt oxide, impurities of various kinds and pulverised quartz. Many customers, especially those producing ceramics and glass, did not want smalt or other finished products. They wanted safflower. They used their own, more or less secret methods to refine the safflower into blue underglaze colours.[11]

In 1776, there were few pigments or oxides that could compete with cobalt. The new European prestige product porcelain, as well as earthenware and English stoneware, needed large quantities of safflower for blue decoration. Manufacturers strived for cheap and efficient production to appeal to a wider mass of buyers. One of the cheapest and easiest ways to produce decorated ceramics was to use refined safflower (for the sake of simplicity called cobalt oxide further on in the text).

On so-called sintered goods, i.e. ceramics that are fired at up to 1400 degrees,[12] cobalt oxide was particularly useful because the firing temperature did not affect the blue colour. It could thus be applied under the glaze. Most other colour oxides were destroyed by the high temperature during glaze firing. Therefore, they had to be applied on top of the glaze and fired again at a lower temperature.[13] This took longer, required more knowledge and cost more in fuel than using cobalt.

What's more, cobalt gave more colour per weight than most other decorative colours. This is how the factory got a long way with small quantities. When the printing technique, so-called transfer printing, was discovered in the UK, the demand for safflower increased. Mass production of print-decorated stoneware was most easily realised with cobalt oxide from the safflower, as the print could be applied directly to unglazed ceramics.   

Although cobalt has always been most strongly associated with ceramics and glass, there were other industries that were more important to the blue dye works at the end of the 18th century.

In the 18th century, literacy grew. This increased the demand for books, newspapers, writing materials, etc. This, in turn, increased the demand for the medium that spread, preserved and enabled information: paper. Until the 1860s, paper was primarily produced from old textiles made of linen or, eventually, cotton. As demand increased, these textiles were of poor quality. They were brown and yellow, rather than shiny white. Therefore, the pulp had to be bleached and coloured to achieve white sheets. It may seem counterintuitive that the addition of blue pigment results in white paper, but it comes from a technique called Blowing.[14] By adding blue pigments, discolourations were neutralised and the textile looked white.[15]

In 1776, there were several blue pigments that could be used in papermaking, but smalt seems to have been favoured. This is because smalt was less affected by the acidic environment in the fermented pulp. The smalt also withstood the influence of other additives. However, there were some drawbacks to using smalt. It had a somewhat weak and uneven opacity.[16] That's why the paper mills had to use quite a lot of it to achieve a good result.

The fact that large quantities of smalt were needed and that the opacity of the smalt was unsatisfactory was of little help to paper manufacturers. They had to wait for new pigments to be invented. For the blue colour factories, the bad aspects of the smalt were a gold mine. Paper manufacturers needed large quantities of smalt to make up for the uneven opacity, and they were, granted, dependent on it to make white paper.    

For the same reasons, smalt was added when white cotton and linen textiles were starched and washed. The smalt was usually already added to the starch, or it was added together with the starch. Both white and blue starches were widely used, and there was malt in both. This was a time when the textile industry was being mechanised, which increased the demand for starch, and thus malt.

As a paint colour, smalt was less important by 1776, but it had a limited use. It created texture, contributed to faster drying and of course gave a blue colour. After Thenard's blue (cobalt alumina) was introduced at the beginning of the 19th century, the demand for smalt decreased. Some Saxon blue dye works began to produce Thenard's blue, but it was not produced in Modum.  

All this made smalt and safflower necessary products for most countries and states in Central and Western Europe. Demand grew in line with technological and social developments in the 18th century.

Even outside Europe, there was demand for European cobalt products. The most important market was China. Unlike most, though not all, European ceramics manufacturers, the Chinese only wanted smalt for their porcelain industry. They had their own sources of cobalt for the underglaze, but used smalt in more intricate enamel decorations. Demand was very high at times.  

In this way, the Saxons had made a fortune from their blue dye works, which pumped hundreds of tonnes of smalt and safflower onto the international market every year. Both great powers such as France and Great Britain, and small states such as (as late as 1776) Denmark-Norway and the Netherlands, were entirely dependent on Saxony to maintain their production of the key products described above.

Before we go any further, we'll briefly look at the viability of the Modum discovery. In retrospect, there is one thing in particular that made the cobalt deposit in Modum special. It was possible to operate exclusively on cobalt ore. Even in Saxony, cobalt ore was commonly extracted as a by-product of other mining operations. Even today, most of the world's cobalt ore is extracted from mines that operate primarily on other ores.[17]

After just under three years of trial operation, several exploitable cobalt deposits had been discovered, both near the discovery site and further away.[18]

This created the conditions for a successful operation in Modum.

Cobalt - self-sufficiency and prestige

Another important point in the potential of the Norwegian cobalt project was self-sufficiency. In 1775, the year before Blaafarveværket was founded, Denmark-Norway's first porcelain factory was started. The founder, Frantz Heinrich Müller, had a somewhat unusual vision for his production. The factory was not to focus on extravagant goods for the nobility and wealthy, but rather goods for «every man's use».[19] As explained above, blue and white porcelain was cheaper to produce than other decorated porcelain. But more important than this was the fact that the factory could be self-sufficient in cobalt from Norway.

This is how the porcelain factory in Copenhagen and the blue colour factory in Modum became two high-tech industries that were closely intertwined. They both adopted new technology and applied it to jointly produce two sophisticated goods, porcelain and blue colour. Together they produced blue and white porcelain.

Müller was not impressed by the quality of the cobalt from Modum, but he emphasised that it still had to be exploited rather than importing better goods from Saxony.[20] In 1776, the prevailing economic mindset was based on export surpluses and self-sufficiency. If the quality of cobalt products from Norway was somewhat lower than those from Saxony, it mattered little. The Norwegian product had to be used. Instead, Müller had to develop methods for refining the Norwegian cobalt to a usable level.

This illustrates how mercantilism in Copenhagen during the period when Blaafarveværket was founded.

In 1776, cobalt itself was, to put it in good Norwegian, the «cutting edge». The technology used in the blue dye works had been known since the 16th century, but scientifically, cobalt was not recognised as a separate substance until 1735.

In this way, the blue colours can be interpreted as a symbol of technological and scientific development, progress and the spread of information.

State control

Just two days after the publication of the founding document, the Danish-Norwegian state had drawn up a set of rules for cobalt mining in the kingdom and, more specifically, the rules for the operation of the Blaafarveværket in Modum. The regulations say a lot about how the state defined its own legal right to cobalt production, as well as its vision for rational management.

The most important thing that was clarified in the regulations was that the state had exclusive rights to all known and unknown cobalt deposits belonging to the same mineralisation on which the discovery was made.[21] If other viable mineralisations were discovered elsewhere, the finder would receive a finder's fee when informing the Blaafarveværk's management of the discovery, but the finder's right was severely limited.[22] In other words, the Blaafarveværket's management could authorise private individuals to mine cobalt, but the extraction had to be handed over to the Blaafarveværket in Modum. The penalty for selling cobalt ore to anyone other than the state could ultimately result in a death sentence.[23] It was punished according to the law against silver theft anno 27 January 1736.[24]

The importance of the project was reflected by secrecy and the threat of severe penalties for breach of confidentiality. «All orders» to officers and managers were confidential and should under no circumstances be repeated to unauthorised persons. Breaches of this could be punished with forced labour.[25]

Smalt and safflower could only be sold from the main warehouses in Drammen or Copenhagen. Even selling directly from Blaafarveværket was illegal. Nor was it possible for customers to buy only safflower. For such purchases, the customer had to be pressurised into buying smalt as well.[26]

All this illustrates the importance of the plant, but also the managers' ignorance of the nature of the cobalt market. It was to be a long and winding road for Norwegian products before they gained access to the international market. Not surprisingly, the requirement for the compulsory purchase of smalt when buying safflower had disappeared by then.  

The supreme governing body of the blue colour plant was subject to overtaxation. This board was set up in 1762 to sort out the national debt that Denmark-Norway had accumulated in previous years. The name comes from the fact that the board's first act was to introduce an extra tax.[27] The Overtaxation Directorate's original task was to administer the extra tax revenue to pay down government debt.

When Blaafarveværket was founded, the overtaxation department had been given several tasks. It was also to work to «act as a buffer for the state's finances for future, unforeseen expenses».[28] The Executive Board's dual role as «reserve fund and public entrepreneur and investor»[29] contributed to the fact that Blaafarveværket was to be governed by him rather than by Overbergamtet or other institutions that were closer to the mining industry.[30]

There were also a number of reasons why the Directorate of Overtaxation was chosen to run the Blaafarve mill. The most important was the director Heinrich Carl Schimmelmann. Schimmelmann was originally a Saxon citizen, but had earned large sums of money during the Seven Years« War by deceiving both the Saxon elector and the Prussian king who invaded and occupied Saxony. When Prussian troops invaded, Schimmelmann was »excise agent" in Dresden.[31] This meant that Schimmelmann worked with import duties. In this role, Schimmelmann played a daring double game, offering his services to both King Frederick of Prussia and the Elector of Saxony. He made huge profits from buying and selling porcelain from Meissen, including by smuggling it to Hamburg.[32]

This is how Schimmelmann ended up offering his services to the Danish state. He was granted a baronetcy and became Danish minister in Hamburg in 1761.[33] In 1762, he became head of the overtaxation department.

Schimmelmann's in-depth knowledge of Saxony and its trade made it natural for him to become involved in the Norwegian cobalt project. However, as we shall see, Schimmelmann's involvement was not a positive one, perhaps quite the opposite.

Inspector Waitz

It was Schimmelmann who recruited Georg Christopher Waitz for the inspector position in Modum. It quickly became clear that it was not Waitz's professional skills or his leadership qualities that were the reason for Schimmelmann's decision. You can read more about Waitz's relatively disastrous time at Blaafarveværket here.

The only thing that needs to be said about Waitz is that the work of replacing him did not begin until Schimmelmann died in 1782. By then, the plant's management had been worn down by arguments, and the plant itself at Haugfoss was in such poor condition that it shocked Waitz's successor. Schimmelmann had protected Waitz even though he had repeatedly demonstrated his incompetence. Therefore, it was not possible for the lower management to sack Waitz before Schimmelmann died.

After Schimmelmann, several positive changes took place. The Directorate of Overtaxation was abolished, so the management of Blaafarveværket was transferred to the Directorate of Mining.[34] The Bergverksdirektion proved to be a far more competent governing body and quickly set about getting operations back on track. They secured funding for espionage at the blue dye works in Hesse, recruited competent new managers, and organised export trials to France, Holland and the UK. This eventually generated income for the plant.

The question that remains is whether the Blaafarve mill was a profitable investment?

So how did it go?

It's important to remember that on 1 April 1776, Blaafarveværket was just a name on a piece of paper. It consisted of a number of shallow holes in the ground on the property of Helge Kittilson Skuterud.

Where a potential blue colour plant would be located and how the necessary technology would be used were then open questions. But what was clear was that a blue dye works would be built, mining operations would be expanded and the community around the works, once its location was known, would have to be prepared for a large influx of workers. In other words, the vision was clear, but everything else was up in the air.

In fact, there were serious plans to establish a blue colouring plant at Syslebekken, Skuterudflaten or Kaggefossen. These locations were in close proximity to the mines, but none of the sites were considered ideal.[35]

In 1776, the Blaa colliery only consisted of a number of sharps on what is now the Nordgruvene and Middagshvile sites. The workers had to commute from their homes or rent accommodation from the landowner. The state did not own Skuterud farm.

In theory, the workers were entitled to health care, but this was severely limited in the very early days. In fact, it is unclear how the management resolved this in the first year of operation.

I emphasise this because the Blaafarve mill, as we know it today, was based on extensive work. The state investments in the project were substantial. Mistakes after mistakes were made, as is often the case in such construction phases, before they were corrected. In addition, international unrest - the Napoleonic Wars - created major difficulties for a plant that was so dependent on exports.

However, it would be too simplistic to claim that the government start-up was merely an inefficient period that was finally redeemed by privatisation in 1822. It is not certain that Wegner and Benecke would have embarked on the project if they had only bought the right to a few holes in the ground in a remote location in Modum. In this way, the state start-up may have been the premise for the flourishing operations that followed, so even if the Danish-Norwegian state did not benefit from its investments, it was nevertheless important for the history that followed.

Even after privatisation, most of the Norwegian and German professionals kept their jobs. Cabin master Poulsen, Geschvorne Gulbrandsen and cabin master Klem were all well established at Blaafarveværket in 1822, and they stayed on after the change of ownership. In this way, we see a continuity from the mill's early days into what would become the mill's golden age in the 1820s and 40s.

---

[1] Letter dated 1 April 1776 signed by King Christian VII and Ove Høeg-Guldberg. A copy of the document can be found in the Blaafarveværket archive and library. Transcribed by me, Lasse H. Bjørnland

[2] NGU Report 2020.023. Mineral resources in the Kongsberg- Modum- Ringerike area, Buskerud. s. 29

Link: https://static.ngu.no/upload/Publikasjoner/Rapporter/2020/2020_023.pdf

[3]Berg, Bjørn Ivar. The cobalt discovery at Modum in 1772, Ole Witloch and the first trial operation (Kongsberg. Norwegian Mining Museum. 2021) p. 47

Link:  https://www.nb.no/items/add8a5c85d6b7bf18a12056035cdcb0e?page=47&searchText=muting

[4] Ibid.

[5] Berg, op.cit.

[6] Viken, Øystein Lydik Idsø; Berg, Bjørn Ivar: Bergamtet in Store norske leksikon at snl.no. Retrieved 4 February 2026 from https://snl.no/Bergamtet

[7] Berg, op.cit.

[8] Ibid. p. 63

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid. p. 24-25

[11] See for example Dorenfelt, Lauritz G. Royal Danish : blue-painted porcelain from The Royal Porcelain Factory. [1] : 1775-ca 1820 (Oslo. C. Huitfeldt Forlag. 1998). Appendix 4, Müller, Frantz Heinrich, p. 102-103 «About the Cobalt Ore's Connection to the Blue Colour»

Link: https://www.nb.no/items/fd39d2344aeb7e0f0389cd1267d8a747?page=105&searchText=Kongelig%20Dansk%20Porselen (Read 04.02.2026)

[12] Opstad, Lauritz: ceramics in Store norske leksikon at snl.no. Retrieved 4 February 2026 from https://snl.no/keramikk

[13] Opstad, Lauritz: porcelain in Store norske leksikon at snl.no. Retrieved 4 February 2026 from https://snl.no/porselen

[14] bluing in Store norske leksikon at snl.no. Retrieved 19 February 2026 from https://snl.no/bl%C3%A5ning

[15] optical brightener in Store norske leksikon at snl.no. Retrieved 19 February 2026 from https://snl.no/optisk_hvitemiddel

[16]

[17] U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 2024

Link: https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2024/mcs2024-cobalt.pdf (Read 12.03.2026)

[18] Berg, op.cit. p. 60

[19] Grandjean, Bredo L. Danish porcelain, Norwegian blue colour: an exhibition of blue-painted dishes from the Royal Porcelain Factory in the period 1776-1856 (Modum. Stiftelsen Modums Blaafarveværk. 1979) p. 9

Link: https://www.nb.no/items/ef0494e747ea535233c93af6a6d6865f?page=9&searchText=Kongelig%20Dansk%20Porselen

[20] Dorenfelt, op.cit.

[21] Lindeman, op.cit. p. 9 The regulations operate with «full strings» which I interpret to mean the more modern same mineralisation.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Heltzen, A. M. «Views on the silver thefts at Sølvverket». Along Lågen (quarterly) : nature and culture from Larvik to the plateau. 1999 Vol. 21 No. 2

Link: https://www.nb.no/items/9fc43c9d2ed6961d797f5771e93e2e7a?page=25&searchText=s%C3%B8lvtyveri (Read 04.02.2026)

[24] Lindeman, op.cit.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Det gamle veldet : norske finansar 1760-79

https://www.nb.no/items/af3579e9ff85765ff925adb5e9a198e6?page=9&searchText=overskattedireksjonen

[28] Christensen, Dan Ch. The modern project - Technology & Culture in Denmark-Norway 1750-(1814) - 1850 (Copenhagen. Gyldendal. 1996) p. 382

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid. p. 410

[32] Ibid.

[33] Det gamle veldet : norske finansar 1760-79 s. 83

https://www.nb.no/items/af3579e9ff85765ff925adb5e9a198e6?page=9&searchText=overskattedireksjonen

[34] Rentekammeret, Renteskriverkontorene, AV/RA-EA-3115/M/Mf/Mfa/L0004: Resolution protocol with register (labelled RK 54.4), 1782

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/rk20120907611147

[35] Berg, op.cit. p. 48