White Gold comes from Saxony
Materials researchers confirm the place of origin of European hard-paste porcelain 
 

Meissen porcelain candalebra and watch

“The recent findings in England do not necessitate the rewriting of the history books,” said the Director of the Porzellansammlung of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dr. Ulrich Pietsch, following a scientific conference in Dresden

. In connection with a recently published research paper, the porcelain expert had been discussing scientific and art historical research methods and findings with materials science specialists from the Bergakademie Freiberg and the Dresden-Rossendorf Research Centre. The paper had identified three vases from the period around 1680 as being made of hard-paste porcelain. Ceramics historians had concluded from this that British manufacturers had developed a procedure for the production of porcelain even before its legendary invention in Saxony by Johann Friedrich Böttger.
 
“The experiment report written by Johann Friedrich Böttger on 15 January 1708 is still to be regarded as the hour of birth of European hard-paste porcelain. We only need to add a footnote saying that porcelain containing kaolin* may possibly have been produced elsewhere without the manufacturers realising it,” says Ulrich Pietsch. However, it must first be proven beyond doubt that the porcelain under investigation really was produced in Vauxhall (England) and is not a Chinese import that was then decorated with enamel paints in England, perhaps in the Vauxhall glassworks. A number of such items are to be found in Europe. The Dresden Porzellansammlung also contains such wares.
 
The white porcelain vases analysed in England are held at Burghley House in Lincolnshire. Technical investigations were conducted at Imperial College and the British Museum, where the vases were subjected to scanning electron and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, whereupon they were reclassified not a soft-paste but as hard-paste porcelain. On the basis of the fact that the vases were recorded in a deed of gift in 1683, the authors concluded that English manufacturers may have developed such porcelain some years prior to its invention in Saxony.  
 
“At the Dresden-Rossendorf Research Centre, numerous works of art have already undergone non-destructive proton beam analysis,” says Dr. Christian Neelmeijer, a physicist at the Rossendorf Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research. “In 2009 large areas of breakage on authentic Meissen porcelain products were investigated and analysed. The chemical composition of these items, in particular as regards their aluminium oxide content, was different from the findings established by the British Museum when testing the English vases.” Dr. Bernd Ullrich,  a scientist at the Institute for Ceramics, Glass and Building Materials at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, added that over the past 20 years he had analysed a large number of historic Chinese and Japanese porcelain wares. “The data established through tests on these porcelains resemble the findings published by the British Museum research group concerning these old ceramics from England.” He therefore considers it likely that these historic products in England are white goods imported from the Far East, which were later painted. 
At the TU Bergakademie Freiberg and at the Dresden-Rossendorf Research Centre, porcelain wares have been investigated using various technologies over the past few years. Ion beam analysis (Dresden-Rossendorf) and electron beam analysis (TU Freiberg) produced comparable results.
 
Johann Friedrich Böttger invented European hard-paste porcelain in 1708 on the basis of experiments conducted by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, later perfecting the technique for regular production. In January 1710 a porcelain manufactory was established in Dresden by August the Strong. In June of the same year production was transferred to Albrechtsburg Castle in Meissen, a short distance from Dresden
. This is regarded as the birth of Europe’s first porcelain manufactory, which is celebrating its tercentenary this year.

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