Böttger red stoneware
The hard red stoneware that was the first step towards European porcelain.
The alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger was held by Augustus the Strong to make gold but produced instead hard stoneware and, in 1709, porcelain. The Meissen factory was founded in 1710. Examples are in the Porzellansammlung in Dresden and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Materials: Red stoneware, cut and polished
Manufacture: Fired so hard that the body could be cut and polished like stone and engraved on the wheel.
The glossy red-brown surface polished like jasper.
Cut facets and engraved leaves, made by glass cutters.