Johann-Friedrich-Böttger-Denkmal

A bronze figure of Johann Friedrich Böttger stands on a stone pedestal, holding a small porcelain vessel in his hand. Böttger lived as a virtual prisoner of Augustus the Strong, who locked him away to discover the secret of turning base metals into gold. Instead, Böttger unlocked the formula for European hard-paste porcelain in seventeen oh eight. This monument marks the site of the former Jungfernbastei laboratory where the alchemist perfected the ceramic that eventually bankrolled the Saxon state for generations.