White Gold from Saxony: Discovering the Secrets of Porcelain at Meissen
Anne Haworth, ceramic specialist and lecturer, gave an illustrated lecture to the Limpsfield Decorative & Fine Arts Society on 'White Gold from Saxony: Discovering the Secrets of Porcelain at Meissen'.
Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, was addicted to porcelain. He collected 24,000 Chinese and Japanese pieces and financed chemists to experiment with the manufacture of porcelain. By 1708 Bottger had developed brown stoneware and by 1710 porcelain was being made at Meissen with kaolin clay from near Colditz. Similarly Augustus sponsored experiments to develop different colours to decorate the hard paste porcelain.
Dinner and tea services were soon being made as well as ceramic figures for wealthy buyers in Europe. Augustus used gifts of Meissen figures as a diplomatic tool, giving Catherine the Great figures of herself on horseback and of her favourite dog. Many other animal figures were made including monkey bands. Musical influences from Leipsig led to other musical figures also being made. For 40 years Meissen enjoyed a monopoly of porcelain manufacture in Europe but by 1750 the manufacturing expertise had spread around Europe. Many Meissen pieces were lost as a result of the bombing of Dresden in World War II but others are in collections around the world.
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