MARGINALIA
Meissen Chymistry
Roald Hoffmann
The Alchemical Fire
The first of the three men whose talents joined in the development
of European porcelain was Augustus the Strong, the Elector of Saxony
and King of Poland, who was besotted by Chinese porcelain. Serving
him was Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus, an aristocratic natural
philosopher and polymath with a practical bent. He wrote on
mathematics, but also learned how to make soft-paste porcelain in
France and built giant burning-lenses that reached the highest
temperatures yet observed.
The third man was Johann Friedrich Böttger, a young alchemist
in the classical vein, who believed in the central philosophy of
alchemy (and chemistry), that of essential transformation. He was
also a very good, practiced chemist, familiar with metallurgical
techniques and the arts of pharmacy. To be an alchemist at this time
was a precarious profession, a calling that required great political
skill. To gain patronage, one had to promise gold or medical cures.
To keep it, one had to practice, with refinement and skill, the art
of eternal, creative procrastination: always assuring more, always
asking for more. No wonder alchemists were always on the move! As in
the story of the goose that laid golden eggs—were the
alchemist to succeed, his patron would not want to lose such an
economic force—Augustus imprisoned Böttger in the
Saxonian capital of Dresden. The incarceration was, in part,
punishment for the failure to produce gold, in part, security of the
supply, should Böttger succeed.
At stake was not just Augustus's displeasure. Figure 3 is a
reproduction of a broadside, a contemporary account of what happened
to a Neapolitan alchemist, Count Domenico Emanuele Cajetano, who was
found cheating. He was hanged. Augustus’s mien—you can
see why he was called "the Strong"—is captured in a
statuette of the King, made in Böttger's lifetime from a
marvelous red stoneware the alchemist labored to perfect.
Tschirnhaus convinced Augustus to put Böttger to the task of
making "white gold," or porcelain. It took only two years
to do so, when so many other attempts had failed, because of a
felicitous conjunction of materials and people. First, there were
nearby deposits of kaolin that were known to Tschirnhaus. This
Saxonian clay lacked the traces of potash mica that lent plasticity
to its Chinese counterpart and allowed Eastern potters to experiment
with more curvaceous forms. Still, this clay and no other was the
essence of porcelain. Next, Böttger could build kilns, in them
"the gehennical fire," that could reach the requisite high
temperatures. And finally, talent to decorate the porcelain existed
among the artists at Augustus’s Dresden court. Figure 4 shows
a Meissen vase that imitates Japanese Arita porcelain
(left); in time unique decorative modes and figurines
(right) were elaborated.
But most of all, the success of the project was due to the careful
experimentation of the alchemist-turned-industrial-chemist. Set on
his way by Tschirnhaus (who died in 1708), Böttger first made
true, white porcelain in 1709 at the age of 27. In 1710 the
porcelain manufactory moved 15 miles down the Elbe River to the city
of Meissen and became known by that name. By 1713 it was an economic success.
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