Collector’s Spotlight: An Early Meissen Tea Caddy Before Meissen, true porcelain was one of the great mysteries of Europe.

For centuries it came only from China and Japan, imported at enormous cost and often called “white gold.” European courts collected it obsessively, but no one knew how it was made. That changed in the early 1700s when, under the patronage of Augustus the Strong in Saxony, the secret was finally discovered. Meissen became the first factory in Europe to produce true hard-paste porcelain, and in doing so it transformed the history of ceramics. Because Meissen was first, everything from this early period carries special importance. These were not simply decorative objects. They were technological ...