Porcelain Gallery, photo: Royal Castle
Unique collections of the Royal Castle
The Porcelain Gallery displays over two hundred pieces of dishes and other utilitarian and decorative objects. Most of them come from the Royal Porcelain Manufactory in Meissen, the rest are Far Eastern specimens - Chinese and Japanese.
The Meissen exhibits include examples of Bottger stoneware, created at the very beginning of the royal factory's activity, as well as a unique set, the only one in Poland, of eighteen vessels decorated with motifs of fantastic animals (Fabeltiere), which were introduced to the design of Meissen porcelain by Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck (ca. 1714– 1754), one of the greatest porcelain and faience painters in history.
Many of the monuments presented in the Gallery are related to the Polish kings of the Wettin dynasty - they come from the collection of Augustus II or were commissioned by Augustus III and were used in royal court confectioneries, including the Warsaw castle.
The arrangement of the exhibition refers to the original solutions of 18th-century porcelain cabinets. The exhibits are presented in five original Dutch cabinets/windows from around 1750 and on French chests of drawers and a console table from the first half of the 18th century.
The colorful history of "white gold"
The first products made of this fragile, white and shiny material from China appeared in Europe at the end of the 14th century and quickly stole the hearts of kings and princes. Exorbitantly expensive, they became a symbol of prestige and a testimony to the good taste of the rulers, serving a more representative than functional function. It was a common practice to create special cabinets exclusively for their exhibition. One of the greatest porcelain enthusiasts was the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, August II the Strong from the Wettin dynasty (1670–1733), the creator of the largest collection of Far Eastern products in Europe at that time. It was under the auspices of this monarch that alchemists Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and Johann Friedrich Böttger, after many trials and errors, managed to unravel the secret of the closely guarded Chinese recipe and obtain the first true European porcelain. This discovery allowed Augustus II to establish a pioneering factory in Meissen on the continent.
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