In a picturesque town by a local train from Dresden there's the mecca of German porcelain.
The museum and factory complex offers a good insight to the foundation of German porcelain. Indeed the Augustus the Strong commissioned the Alchemist Böttger to find white gold. He did, but first attempt was a chocolate brown basalt which is used in the factory even these days.
The museum is the cousin for Sèvres because of the squickly floors, but represents only Meissen miracles - as Sèvres museum has ceramics from all around the world.
Don't get this wrong since the museum was quite vast. The delicate porcelain flower vases, the clockworks and the serving ware are all displayed.
The contemporary exhibition section had Chris Antermann's residency creations that were the usual and amazing works of her's.
The tour started with pools where the locally mined kaolin is made into clay. This was my first touch with Meissen porcelain since I got to stirr the pool. The quide was kind enough to ask me in English.
The factory tour continued to the casting department where I got to touch the discarded version of cast sphere forms. The factory workers were very young females and the male workers cast with the bigger forms - the heavier molds.
The factory tour was very thorough since we got to see the modelling department and the form archive. The tour was indeed in German but as I heard they have a sertain amount of minutes for each sculpture - that collectors buy.
The tour continued to the chinapaint department and lastly to the more factory type part of the complex where they still glazed everything by hand. They made sure that we understood that every part of the making process involves hand made. And that's where the price of the ware comes from.
The museum and factory complex has a outlet where they sell first quality with reduced prices. I bought an delicate shaped coffee cup with a saucer because I definitely wanted something with a blue double swords mark.