Porzellansammlung

It was Böttger the failed alchemist who, together with von Tschirnhaus, would eventually succeed in producing the white porcelain so desired by Augustus the Strong, using a mixture of Colditz clay, alabaster and quartz. Europe could now manufacture the 'white gold' it had hitherto imported from the Far East and, in 1710, the Porzellan-Manufaktur Meissen started production from the security of Albrechtsburg castle.

Not that that would wholly cure Augustus of his porzellankrankheit. In the spring of 1717, the year in which Köhler and Mehlhorn would succeed in producing a formula for a cobalt underglaze blue, Augustus exchanged 600 cavalrymen for 150-odd porcelain vessels from Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, including the infamous 'dragoon vases'.

In addition to these and other exquisite Chinese and Japanese pieces, the collection also houses various delightful pieces of Meissen manufacture: animal sculptures (including a couple of Kirchner rhinoceroses with horns on their backs as well as their noses, a Kändler peacock, a monkey with a snuffbox, and two Bolognese dogs, wide-eyed and snarling); delicate little figurines (the characters of the commedia dell'arte were particularly appealing to Kändler, who saw them as 'both gallant and ribald at the same time'); and large elaborate centrepieces.