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Meissen Porcelain: Difference between revisions
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'''''The following submission is courtesy of [http://www.racineandlaramie.com/ Racine & Laramie Tobacconist]''''' | '''''The following submission is courtesy of [http://www.racineandlaramie.com/ Racine & Laramie Tobacconist]''''' | ||
[[Meissen Porcelain]] was the first European hard-paste porcelain. The Chinese had mastered the production of porcelain long before the west was even aware of it, and by the seventeenth century oriental porcelain, in Europe was called white gold and had become a valuable export commodity in the China trade. In Europe owning porcelain from China and Japan signified importance, refined taste, and great wealth. | [[Meissen Porcelain]] was the first European hard-paste [[porcelain]]. The Chinese had mastered the production of porcelain long before the west was even aware of it, and by the seventeenth century oriental porcelain, in Europe was called white gold and had become a valuable export commodity in the China trade. In Europe owning porcelain from China and Japan signified importance, refined taste, and great wealth. | ||
At the beginning of the eighteenth century Johann Friedrich Böttger pretended he had solved the dream of the alchemists, to produce gold from worthless materials. When Augustus II the Strong - well known for his insatiable hankering for gold heard of it he imprisoned Böttger in a dungeon and ordered him to make gold. Böttger toiled away many years, at many a noxious concoction, attempting to produce the 'gold making tincture' and, therefore, to regain his freedom. At the same time, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, a mathematician and scientist, using a burning glass was experimenting with the manufacture of glass as well as trying to make porcelain. In 1704, impatient with no progress, the monarch ordered Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus to oversee the young goldmaker. At first Böttger had no interest in von Tschirnhaus' experiments, but with no results of his own and by then fearing for his life, he slowly started cooperating. He did not wish to be involved with porcelain, but ordered by the monarch and probably thinking the deciphering of porcelain's secrets his only option left to both satisfy the monarch's greed and save his own neck, by 1707 he began cooperating in earnest. | At the beginning of the eighteenth century Johann Friedrich Böttger pretended he had solved the dream of the alchemists, to produce gold from worthless materials. When Augustus II the Strong - well known for his insatiable hankering for gold heard of it he imprisoned Böttger in a dungeon and ordered him to make gold. Böttger toiled away many years, at many a noxious concoction, attempting to produce the 'gold making tincture' and, therefore, to regain his freedom. At the same time, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, a mathematician and scientist, using a burning glass was experimenting with the manufacture of glass as well as trying to make porcelain. In 1704, impatient with no progress, the monarch ordered Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus to oversee the young goldmaker. At first Böttger had no interest in von Tschirnhaus' experiments, but with no results of his own and by then fearing for his life, he slowly started cooperating. He did not wish to be involved with porcelain, but ordered by the monarch and probably thinking the deciphering of porcelain's secrets his only option left to both satisfy the monarch's greed and save his own neck, by 1707 he began cooperating in earnest. | ||