Meissen Porcelain, manufactured by the Staatliche Porzellan-Manufactur Meissen GmbH, has been produced in Germany for more than 300 years. It was the first true porcelain made outside the Orient. While Meissen Porcelain is expensive, its high quality and unique designs make it desirable collector items.
Meissen Porcelain vase on exhibit in the lobby of the Leipzig Nationalbibliothek. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2014. www.walled-in-berlin.com
Chinese Porcelain
The first pottery was created in China during the Paleolithic era some 2.6 million years to about 12,000 years ago. The term “pottery” includes earthenware, which is porous and fired at low temperatures, and stoneware, which is non-porous and fired at higher temperatures. Porcelain, according to Western definition, is stoneware that is white, strong and translucent. It can be shaped, glazed and easily painted. The process of making porcelain was originally perfected in China about 2,000 to 1,200 years ago and slowly spread to Europe and the rest of the world. By the seventeenth century porcelain had become a valuable export commodity for China. But because it was expensive, only the elite could afford it.
Early Meissen Porcelain
Starting in 1708, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, a mathematician and scientist, experimented with the manufacture of glass and porcelain. Johann Friedrich Boettger, an alchemist, perfected the process and began producing porcelain in Meissen, Germany, near the city of Dresden. Following his initial reddish-brown stoneware, called Boettgersteinzeug, he came up with a hard-paste white porcelain that could be glazed and painted. In 1720, the Meissen Porcelain logo was created. It consists of two crossed swords based on the arms of the Elector of Saxony. Three years later, Johann Gregorius Hoeroldt introduced multicolor enameled paints, and in 1733 the sculptor Johann Joachim Kaendler added a series of painted figurines, which became synonymous with the Meissen Manufactory.
Meissen Porcelain – after World War II and the reunification
Following World War II, when Germany was partitioned into four sectors, the town of Meissen fell under Communist rule. In 1950, the manufactory, once owned by the King of Saxony and later by the State of Saxony, became a people-owned company. Meissen Porcelain, which had always sold to the elite, struggled in vain to find its way into mass consumption. Then, in 1969, the East German VEB Meissen Porzellan decided to once again focus on its traditions and became one of the few profitable companies in the economically troubled East German system. After German reunification in 1990, ownership of the Meissen manufactory reverted to the State of Saxony.
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