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Johann Friedrich Böttger

German potter

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Johann Friedrich Böttger was a German alchemist and potter who, along with physicist Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus, discovered the secret of true hard-paste porcelain in Europe around 1707. This breakthrough led to the establishment of the Meissen factory in Saxony in 1710, which became a dominant force in European porcelain production until about 1756.1

Böttger also developed a fine, reddish-brown stoneware, known as Böttger ware. While early Meissen porcelain was not highly translucent, improvements were made, and the factory later achieved high points in sculptural modeling, particularly under Johann Joachim Kändler. Meissen porcelain is famously marked with crossed blue swords.21

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