10 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
under surveillance, and with strict injunctions if he valued 
his personal well-being, to go ahead and make gold. His 
researches were pursued under the stimulus of his dread of 
having his career suddenly terminated by the public ex- 
ecutioner, but although he did not succeed in making gold, 
he finally produced, as a residual product of one of his 
experiments, a substance of a red color, closely resembling 
porcelain, but more nearly a very fine grade of stoneware. 
In the possibilities of this discovery, August II was at once 
interested, as next to gold it was likely to prove at that 
epoch the most profitable discovery he could have expected, 
and one likely to redound to his own credit, so he encour- 
aged Boettger to proceed. In 1709 he had succeeded in 
turning out some really creditable articles in his redstone 
ware, for which he managed the following year to per- 
fect a fine glaze, and specimens of the ware he produced 
at this period, although scarce, are yet to be seen in ceramic 
collections, notably in the museum at Dresden. Some of 
them, including teapots, teacups and saucers, were shown 
at the great fair in Leipzig in 1710. 
January, 1911 
with silver, gold, platina or colored enamels, it was ex- 
ceedingly attractive, as specimens still in existence prove, 
so much so that the King used the choicer pieces as gifts 
for his most esteemed friends and favorites, often mount- 
ing them in the precious metals. 
But the production of this stoneware, or ‘“‘Boettger”’ 
ware, successful as it proved, didnot satisfy Boettger. The 
artistic instinct aroused in him spurred him to further 
achievements, and he aimed at the production of ware that 
would compare in fineness, originality and delicacy, with 
the creations of the Oriental artists. With the best 
materials the country furnished, at his command, supple- 
mented with others that he discovered or pressed into his 
service, the Kaolin he found in his hair powder, being ac- 
cording to some accounts utilized for these purposes, and, 
in the King’s collections, the choicest specimens of Oriental 
porcelains as models and incentives he unremittingly per- 
sued his investigations and constantly improved in the de- 
sign, execution and finish of the goods he turned out. 
The King, recognizing the progress he was making, en- 
The present Royal Meissen factory 
This was really nothing new, red stoneware made in 
China and Japan being already known in Europe; but 
this was home-made, and although described as somewhat 
crude in form and finish, at once attracted attention. To 
improve its form, the King commissioned the famous court 
goldsmith, Irminger, to make patterns for the new ware, 
in which he embodied Barocque ideas, and with this differ- 
ence, and certain changes in the composition of the mass 
which Boettger introduced, he was able to produce an 
article differing broadly from the Chinese ware, and which 
for many years retained its popularity. 
One of the ingredients of the mass, the composition of 
which, like all the operations conducted by these early cera- 
mists, was a jealously-guarded secret, was iron-oxide, and 
the proportion in which it was present and the chemical 
changes it underwent in the process of firing, consequent on 
the temperature maintained, and whether the firing was 
done in a muffle or in open kiln, enabled the maker to vary 
its color, from copper red to deep brown, so that with dec- 
orations in simple relief, picked out with gold or painted 
couraged him in his efforts and foreseeing in the results 
something infinitely superior to the best efforts of the 
faience and earthenware factories of the times, resolved to 
take part in the work and incidently to share whatever 
credit and profit might result from it; under royal decree, 
dated January 23, 1710, he ordered the establishment, in 
Dresden, of a porcelain factory, which for convenience’ 
sake was removed, a few months afterwards, to Meissen, 
on the banks of the Elbe, fifteen miles from the residence 
city, where it was installed in the practically abandoned and 
internally inadequate royal castle or fortress of Albrechts- 
burg. This castle, Boettger immediately began to put in 
shape for his work, the ‘“‘Venus baston,’” which is still in 
existence and in a fair state of preservation ‘This, then, 
was the birthplace, in Europe, of the porcelain industry 
and this the event so appropriately and happily celebrated 
recently in Meissen. 
As was to be expected, on account of the interest the 
reigning Saxon monarch had taken in the development of 
the industry, royalty took a conspicuous part in the cele- 
