European hard-paste porcelain
Porcelana dura europea (Meissen)
- Date
- 1708-1710 · confidence high
- Place
- Dresden and Meissen, Saxony, Germany
- Credited to
- Johann Friedrich Böttger and Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus
- People
- 👤 Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus1651–1708👤 Johann Friedrich Böttger1682–1719
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The rediscovery of the formula for Chinese porcelain (kaolin and feldspar fired at 1,400°C) by an alchemist held prisoner by Augustus the Strong. It broke the Asian monopoly and created the Meissen manufactory (1710).
Tschirnhaus directed the experiments and died in 1708; Böttger took the credit. Medici porcelain (1575) was soft-paste, not true porcelain.
What it led to
- Royal porcelain manufactories (Sèvres, Vienna, Capodimonte)
- Industrial secrecy and technological espionage as state policy
- The substitution of Asian imports and mercantilism
- High-temperature chemistry and scientific ceramics
Built on
- True porcelain and dragon kilnc. 700
- Blue-and-white underglaze porcelainc. 1330
- Chinese porcelain
- High-temperature furnaces
- Alchemy and mineral assaying
- Böttger's red stoneware (1707)
Made possible
- Sèvres porcelain
- Wedgwood's industrial pottery
- Ceramic insulators