Porcelain and court cabinetmakers

Meissen gave Europe hard-paste porcelain, and the princely courts competed for the best cabinetmakers.

At Meissen Johann Friedrich Böttger and Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus worked out how hard-paste porcelain is made, and the manufactory was founded in 1710. Johann Joachim Kändler modelled figures and animals that became models for the whole of Europe. Vienna, Nymphenburg and Berlin got factories of their own.

Abraham and David Roentgen in Neuwied made furniture with mechanisms and pictorial marquetry, sold to courts from Paris to St Petersburg.