Evolution of a Royal Vision: The Birth of Meissen Porcelain See all the exhibitions.

The method for manufacturing true porcelain was developed in China by the sixth century. Europeans, however, did not learn how to produce porcelain until the early eighteenth century when the alchemist Johann Friedrich Bottger (1682-1719), under the patronage of August II, elector of Saxony and king of Poland discovered how to make pottery. The following year, the king established a royal manufactory outside of Dresden in the town of Meissen. Among royalty and aristocrats, the possession of porcelain immediately became one of the major status symbols of the 1700s. This exhibition features over one hundred and fifty pieces of eighteenth-century Meissen porcelain, many of which are from the collection of Augustus the Strong.