Meissen porcelain or Meissen china is the first European hard-paste porcelain

Hard-paste porcelain

Hard-paste porcelain is a ceramic material that was originally made from a compound of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at very high temperature. It was first made in China around the 9th century....

 that was developed from 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus

Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus

Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus was a German mathematician, physicist, physician, and philosopher...

. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger

Johann Friedrich Böttger

Johann Friedrich Böttger was a Germanalchemist.He was generally acknowledged as the inventor of European porcelain although more recent sources ascribe this to Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus...

, continued his work and brought porcelain to the market. The production of porcelain at Meissen

Meissen

Meissen is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrechtsburg castle, the Gothic Meissen Cathedral and the Meissen Frauenkirche...

, near Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, started in 1710 and attracted artists and artisans to establish one of the most famous porcelain manufacturers, still in business today as Staatliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Meissen GmbH.