The Chinese might have been the masters at porcelain-making for centuries, but thankfully in 1708 Joachim Böttger, a hapless chemist who hoped to find the formula for gold discovered a different kind of treasure: the way to make porcelain while combining kaolin clay and alabaster. Since then Meissen porcelain (recognisable thanks to its blue crossed swords marking) has become Europe’s most precious and prestigious tableware, sought after the world over. It even earned a reputation as one of the chief hard currency earners under communist rule, a sure sign of its dependable and enduring value.
Love your Meissen? Take a peek at the craftsmen manufacturing the Meissen porcelain on site, an incredibly painstaking and precise art, designing the world’s most exquisite and detailed fragile figurines.