Meissen Porcelain Manufactory

For centuries Europeans could not fathom how the Chinese made porcelain, importing it at ruinous cost as 'white gold'. Augustus the Strong of Saxony imprisoned a young alchemist, Johann Friedrich Böttger, who had boasted he could make gold, and ordered him instead to crack the porcelain secret. In 1708–10 Böttger and the scientist Ehrenfried von Tschirnhaus succeeded, and in 1710 Augustus founded the Meissen manufactory in the fortress of Albrechtsburg to guard the secret under lock and key. Meissen's crossed-swords mark, adopted in 1722, is one of the world's oldest trademarks. Its figurines, dinner services and the famous Blue Onion pattern set the standard for European porcelain, and the works still operates over three centuries later.