La Maladie de Porcelaine - East Asian Porcelain From The Collection of Augustus the Strong

August the Strong. Elector of Saxony and King of Poland (1670-1733), whose passion for collecting created the basis of Dresden's Art Collections, had a particular fondness for porcelain. It is to his "maladie de porcelaine", as he himself dubbed his "porcelain addiction", that Dresden owes its unique collection of East Asian porcelain from the 17th and early 18th centuries.

In the collection today there are still more than 10,000 of the more than 24,000 pieces of Chinese and Japanese porcelain that the King originally acquired for the sumptuous decoration of the "Japanische Palais" to be transformed into a porcelain palace. The documentation of items of porcelain in the surviving inventories of 1721 and 1779 is also of particular historical significance.

With 100 masterpieces, this book shows the outstanding artistic quality and wide range of the Dresden collection of East Asian porcelain, including Chinese blue and white and porcelain of the "famille verte" and of the "famille rose", early Japanese blue and white porcelain and Kakiemon- and Imari-style porcelain.

The importance of East Asian porcelain in Dresden lies not only in the unique size and quality of the collection. It also inspired Johann Friedrich Böttger's reinvention of porcelain, under the auspices of Augustus the Strong, in 1709, and also inspired the forms and decorative patterns of 18th-century Meissen porcelain.

In this catalogue numerous pieces are presented for the first time.