18th Century Saxon Consorts and their Personal Relationships with Porcelain Manufactories in Europe

The dynastic marriages of three Saxon princesses, granddaughters of Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, whose trousseaux collectively contained hundreds of pieces of Meissen porcelain, helped inspire widespread desire among European elites to develop porcelain manufactories of their own. The Meissen factory was the first hard-paste porcelain manufactory in Europe and was founded in 1710 by Augustus II, a prodigious collector of porcelain and for whom culture and pageantry were tangible symbols of power and influence. European-made porcelain embodied the essence of taste for eighteenth-century Europeans – its white body the epitome of refinement and beauty in the arts. It was also rare, costly, and had been attained through scientific and technological struggle – the latter especially beguiling in the Age of Reason. There was great prestige attached to ownership of a porcelain factory. Porcelain also generated a new political instrument, one that could be used for expensive gifts of state or timely propaganda. This paper seeks to examine the relationships of these granddaughters, the “porcelain princesses,” to porcelain manufacture and its influence on public opinion. I will pay particular attention to Maria Amalia who not only married Charles Bourbon, King of Naples and the Two Sicilies (and later Charles III, King of Spain), but who also was instrumental in the founding of the Capodimonte porcelain manufactory in Italy and later, the Buen Retiro porcelain manufactory in Madrid.