47 TRAVEL, DISCOVERIES AND EXPERIMENTS IRIS YVONNE WAGNER By the time the Venetian merchant Marco Polo (1254–1324) described porcelain as tableware in the account of his epic journey to Asia, having very likely brought back examples of it in his luggage, it joined silk, precious stones and spices as one of the most sought-after imports from the Far East. As neither the constituent parts of the gleaming material nor how it was made were known in Europe, rising demand in the sixteenth and seventeenth century led to Chinese porcelain being produced and shipped westwards in prodigious quantities. At the same time, alchemical experiments were being undertaken in various locations across Europe including Venice, Florence, Rouen, Saint-Cloud and not least Meissen, with the ultimate aim of being able to produce this highly desirable commodity. Elector Friedrich August I of Saxony (1670–1733), better known as Augustus the Strong, was an avid collector of East Asian porcelain. It was under his reign that the first successful attempt at making hard-paste porcelain took place in Europe. During the early modern period, members of the high nobility played an important role as patrons not only in the fields of art, music, literature and architecture but also in the natural sciences, engaging scholars working and researching in the spheres of astrology, philosophy, alchemy and medicine. ◄ Detail from cat. 12
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