But then, after much experimentation, the recipe for true hard-paste porcelain was developed at the Saxon factory of Meissen near Dresden in Germany. The alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger, working for Augustus the Strong, monarch of Saxony (who had a passion for all things Chinese), refined a recipe that had been created by mathematician and scientist Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. In 1708, Böttger devised a successful formula using kaolin clay, petuntse (also known as porcelain stone), and ground feldspar, and in 1709, production at the Dresden laboratories began.
