ig fair of 1710, and for many years it enjoyed great popularity, as
well as the undesirable honour of wide imitation. At the same time
(1710) Bottger exhibited a few crude specimens of greyish-white
porcelain. Imperfect pieces were on sale in 1713, and by 1716 its
manufacture was definitely established, though the pieces were still far
from perfect. Bottger died in 1719, having had the rare fortune, in his
short and eventful life, to establish in Europe the manufacture of true
porcelain.

The life of Bottger reads like a page of romance, and the story of the
subsequent development of porcelain manufacture throughout the German
empire is hardly less romantic. When the importance of Bottger's
discovery was recognized, he and his workmen were removed from Dresden
to the Albrechtsburg, a fortress situated at Meissen some 16 m. away, so
that the manufacture could be conducted with the greatest secrecy. All
concerned were practically state prisoners, and this extreme rigour
doubtless defeated the end in view, for workmen escaped from time to
time, and professing, more or less truthfully, a knowledge of the
manufacture, found patrons among the German princes all eager to gain
reputation as experimenters in the new art of porcelain. Some of these
wandering "Arcanists," like Ringler and Hunger, and the men who learnt
from them, travelled all over the empire, and the following list of
dates will show how porcelain factories sprang up from the parent
factory at Meissen:--

Meissen 1710 | St Petersburg 1744
Vienna 1718 | Berlin 1750
Ansbach 1718 | Nymphenburg 1758
Bayreuth 1720 | Ludwigsburg 1758

_Meissen._--Although the factory which was founded at Meissen as a
result of Bottger's discovery remained on its old site until 1863, the
porcelain made there has been commonly known as Dresden porcelain;
probably because Dresden was the seat of the Saxon court, and the
enterprise was conducted at the expense of the electors of Saxony. So
jealously were the secrets of this factory guarded that when Napoleon,
the master of Europe, sent Brongniart to investigate the methods in use
at Meissen in 1812, the elector of Saxony had to release Steinauer, the
director, from his oath of secrecy before he would explain the
processes. Meissen porcelain, therefore, affords us the best example by
which we may follow the changes of fashion and taste that governed the
styles of