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.
Meissen porcelain ("Königlich-Polnische und Kurfürstlich-Sächsische Porzellan-Manufaktur"), placed Böttger's laboratory at Albrechtsburg castle in Meissen and production started officially in 1710. The first type of ware produced by Böttger was a refined and extremely hard red stoneware known as "Böttger ware" in English (in German "Böttgersteinzeug"). It retained very crisp definition in its cast, applied details, on bodies that could be polished to a gloss before firing. Models were derived from Baroque silver shapes and Chinese ceramic examples. Meissen's production of a hard paste white porcelain that could be glazed and painted soon followed, and wares were put on the market in 1713.