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Updated: June 20, 2025
Some rare specimens of this ware had been brought by the Portuguese from China, which were sold for more than their weight in gold. Bottgher was first induced to turn his attention to the subject by Walter von Tschirnhaus, a maker of optical instruments, also an alchemist.
Broken in body and mind, alternately working and drinking, though with occasional gleams of nobler intention, and suffering under constant ill-health, the result of his enforced confinement, Bottgher lingered on for a few years more, until death freed him from his sufferings on the 13th March, 1719, in the thirty-fifth year of his age.
The life of John Frederick Bottgher, the inventor of hard porcelain, presents a remarkable contrast to that of Palissy; though it also contains many points of singular and almost romantic interest. Bottgher was born at Schleiz, in the Voightland, in 1685, and at twelve years of age was placed apprentice with an apothecary at Berlin.
Bottgher, however, was still under strict surveillance, for fear lest he should communicate his secret to others or escape the Elector's control. The new workshops and furnaces which were erected for him, were guarded by troops night and day, and six superior officers were made responsible for the personal security of the potter.
In this position, the persecuted man kept on working for some time, till, at the end of a year or two, he grew negligent. Disgusted with the world and with himself, he took to drinking. Such is the force of example, that it no sooner became known that Bottgher had betaken himself to this vice, than the greater number of the workmen at the Meissen factory became drunkards too.
But it was too late: Bottgher had already arrived in Dresden, where he was lodged in the Golden House, and treated with every consideration, though strictly watched and kept under guard. The Elector, however, must needs leave him there for a time, having to depart forthwith to Poland, then almost in a state of anarchy.
Frederick was himself very much in want of money at the time, and he was overjoyed at the prospect of obtaining gold in any quantity by the aid of the young alchemist. Bottgher was accordingly conveyed in secret to Dresden, accompanied by a royal escort. He had scarcely left Wittenberg when a battalion of Prussian grenadiers appeared before the gates demanding the gold-maker's extradition.
This is now one of the most thriving branches of French industry, of which the high quality of the articles produced is certainly indisputable. The career of Josiah Wedgwood, the English potter, was less chequered and more prosperous than that of either Palissy or Bottgher, and his lot was cast in happier times.
He seems to have been early fascinated by chemistry, and occupied most of his leisure in making experiments. These for the most part tended in one direction the art of converting common on metals into gold. At the end of several years, Bottgher pretended to have discovered the universal solvent of the alchemists, and professed that he had made gold by its means.
The king himself expressed a wish to see and converse with him, and when Frederick I. was presented with a piece of the gold pretended to have been converted from copper, he was so dazzled with the prospect of securing an infinite quantity of it Prussia being then in great straits for money that he determined to secure Bottgher and employ him to make gold for him within the strong fortress of Spandau.
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