Glück auf! Bergmännisches Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts

From the mid-1740s, imaginative illustrations of mining scenes increasingly adorned vessels from the Meissen Royal Porcelain Manufactory. Sculptural depictions of miners can already be found in Böttger stoneware and Böttger porcelain later, the artists George Fritzsche the Elder (probably 1697-1756) and Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) each dedicated a series of figures to them. The unique combination of mining and porcelain also influenced and inspired other manufactories in German speaking regions, including Berlin, Fürstenberg, and Vienna. Achim and Beate Middelschulte have assembled what is probably the worlds most extensive collection of porcelain featuring mining motifs. A significant selection was transferred to a foundation and incorporated into the holdings of the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum as a permanent loan. This selection is presented in depth in the present publication.