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Chinese porcelain was much admired and collected in 17th-century Europe, and the secret of its manufacture was as eagerly sought after as the secret of turning base metal into gold, and often attempted by the same men. King Augustus of Saxony was the keenest of all seekers after the arcanum, or secret recipe; and this book narrates in great detail the involved and often dark events that eventually led to the discovery of the recipe, and the establishment of European porcelain factories, in particular at Meissen. Beauty and worth combined to make porcelain so potent a force that conspiracy, imprisonment, bribery, murder and suicide attended its history. The biography of Johann Friedrich Bottger, the imprisoned alchemist worked to death because of his claim of discovering the formula, is a book in itself, and he is only one of an extraordinary cast of enthusiastic, often misled characters in a story which is eagerly and racily told. (Kirkus UK)
