Johann
Friedrich Bottger, an alchemist, discovered porcelain after being
held under house arrest in 1700 by order of Augustus the Strong,
the elector of Saxony.
Although
the 18-year-old Johann Bottger had committed no crime, Augustus
had heard that the young man was an alchemist hoping to create gold
from base metals. If gold was to be made, Augustus wanted the secret
for himself.
Bottger was kept a prisoner in Dresden, carrying on his fruitless
experiments and despite desperate attempts to escape he was always
captured and brought back.
 This
was an impossible predicament and eventually a solution was suggested
by a Dresden scientist, Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus. He had
spent the previous twenty years attempting to discover the secret
of true porcelain, (another obsession of Augustus).
He had made considerable progress, but not sufficient to produce
wares on a reliable basis. Recognising Bottger's talent, he suggested
that they join forces and concentrate on a realistic quest rather
than the alchemist's hopeless pursuit of gold.
Porcelain had been made in China since the 14th century and it
created a sensation when it was brought to Europe.
No-one had ever seen such white semi-translucent pottery. People
paid high prices for it and, despite many trials; the secret of
its manufacture was still unknown at the beginning of the 18th century.
Johann Friedrich Bttger is generally acknowledged as the inventor
of European porcelain and although more recent sources ascribe this
to Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, Bottger is still credited
with the meissen manufacturing process.
In 1705, Bottger, still under guard,
was moved to meissen to work with Tschirnhaus. The work was interrupted
for a year when the Swedes occuppied Saxony in 1706 and Bottger
was moved to a distant fortress for safe keeping.
In 1707, Bottger was returned to
Dresden, where a laboratory was established for him in another fortress.
Tschirnhaus died on October 11th 1708 from dysentery.
In 1708, a practical formula was
produced and production began in the Dresden laboratories in 1709.
The first pieces went on sale at the Leipzig Easter Fair in 1710.
Augustus finished building a royal porcelain factory in Meissen
in June the same year and the operation was transferred there.
The first wares were red and are now known as Böttger stoneware.
By 1713 Meissen was producing delicate white porcelain and coloured
glazes followed within the next few years.
Böttger was passionately proud of his creations. He inspired
Augustus with his vision of pieces designed by leading artists to
out perform even the Chinese, and his achievement in this field
gave Saxony its greatest single distinction. Yet he directed the
Meissen factory from confinement in Dresden. He had the luxury of
a house in the fortress, but there were guards on the door.
Augustus, his tyrannical employer, remained resentful that he had
been fobbed off with porcelain rather than gold, but finally released
Böttger in 1714.
In 1719, Johann Friedrick Bottger was still in his early thirties,
when he became extremely ill and died.
While production of Meissen porcelain started successfully, Augustus
never made money from the factory as he bought most of the best
pieces to add to his own collection.
Inevitably, the great secret of porcelain manufacture escaped and
other European factories started to make this magic material, but
meissen was the first and is still the most famous.
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