Meissen Meissen Meissen (in German orthography: "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. The "Große Kreisstadt" is the capital of the Meissen district. Meissen is sometimes known as the "cradle of Saxony". The city grew out of the early Slavic settlement of "Misni" inhabited by the Glomacze tribe and was founded as a German town by King Henry the Fowler in 929.
Volkstedt porcelain Friedrich Böttger, the ceramists at Meissen. He wished to open a privileged porcelain factory, making true hard-paste porcelain, intended to be sited in Sitzendorf. In 1762 the privilege was granted by Johann Friederich, Fürst von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, a great patron of the arts and music, specifying that the manufactory was to be set up near his princely court of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, under his personal direction. Volkstedt gained a reputation for its finely painted and carefully modeled porcelain figures that it holds for collectors today. In 1797 Ernest Constantine, Landgrave of Hesse-Philippsthal, acquired the porcelain manufactory in Volkstedt, which he sold two years