Meissen
Germany fell into the secret of making porcelain by a chain of circumstances. An alchemist named Johann Friedrich Bottger was working in an apothecary in Berlin and had an interest in the changing of base metals into gold. The king of Prussia, Freerick I, took an interest in him because he was blessed in his experiments by a begging Greek Monk. Eager to escape the kings oversight and control Bottger fled to Wittenburg in Saxony and sighned on as a student of medicine at the University. The ruler of Saxony, Agustus the Strong, heard of Botters presence and had him arrested and brought to Dresden. Agustus then had him transferred to Albrechsburg castle near Meissen and forced him to work on producing gold from led and mercury for thee years. With no positive results, Bottger was then placed under the direction of the world famous physicist Ehrenfried Walther Count von Tschirnhaus in an effort to produce precious stones. The two then carried out experiments testing refractory materials and fluxes in high temprature atmospheres. In 1707 Bottger produced a hard stoneware body that he continually treated as if it were stone by cutting, engraving, and polishing the material. He named this stoneware material 'jasper' after the semi-precious stone. He also developed a glaze for the material that would tale gold and bright colored laquer decoration. In 1708 Bottger substituted a white clay found at Meissen and discovered the secret of hard paste porcelain. Agustus the Strong then paraded the new discovery around Europe to show a new found means of power and wealth. Bottger died in 1719 having never fully reached the industrial potential of porcelain production.
A piar of herons modeled by Johann Joachim Kandler. 1731-1735
Kandler researched by making many sketches from collections of taxedermied animals in Dresden and Moritzburg. Having never worked in the ceramic field before joining the Meissen factory, Kandler overcame many technical difficulties very quickly.
