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.
Swan Service Swan Service The Swan Service (German: "Schwanenservice") is a large service of baroque Meissen porcelain which was made for the First Minister of the Electorate of Saxony, Heinrich von Brühl. Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and also King of Poland, had made Brühl the Supervisor of the Meissen works in 1733, then in August 1739 its Director. The Swan Service has been called "the most famous high baroque production in Meissen porcelain", "a triumph of modelling and firing", and "the most fabulous tableware conceived in porcelain". After earlier work with prototypes, the Meissen designers and modellers Johann Joachim Kändler, Johann