Meissen Porcelain Manufactory

Meissen Bird Cage
Henry Arnhold’s Meissen Palace: Celebrating a Collector
porcelain birdcage, blue and white
Henry Arnhold’s Meissen Palace: Celebrating a Collector
video still of Armanis Fuentes with laughing Buddha incense burner
Closer Look: Meissen "Incense Burner"

In this inaugural episode of Closer Look, Armanis Fuentes, Ayesha Bulchandani Undergraduate Education Intern, discusses an incense burner from the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory on display at Frick Madison. Armanis makes connections to Laughing Buddha figure​s and explores the portal-like power of porcelain, a material that links the rich visual cultures of Buddhism in China and Japan to eighteenth-century Saxony.

video of Paul Arnhold walking in gallery with porcelain
Paul Arnhold introduces "Henry Arnhold's Meissen Palace"
Get a closer look at the Frick's "miracle collection" of Meissen porcelain, gifted to the museum by the late Henry H. Arnhold (1921–2018). In this video filmed in the 2019 exhibition Henry Arnhold’s Meissen Palace: Celebrating a Collector, Paul Arnhold speaks to the legacy of his grandfather’s collection.
video still of Xavier Salomon and porcelain spicebox in shape of shell
Cocktails with a Curator: Meissen "Swan Service"

This week’s episode of Cocktails with a Curator is a story of creation and destruction. Join Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon as he examines two pieces of the legendary Meissen Swan Service, which was all but destroyed during World War II when Russian soldiers ransacked a palace in the Polish village of Brody. This opulent set of dishes was given by Augustus III, King of Poland, to the statesman Heinrich von Brühl, who helped engineer Augustus’s ascent to the throne in 1734.

video still of Xavier Salomon and porcelain teapot
Cocktails with a Curator: Böttger's 'Teapot'

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon delves into the significance of a deceptively simple teapot designed by Johann Friedrich Böttger and given to the Frick by the great German-born collector Henry H. Arnhold (1921–2018). Enjoy a Saxon cocktail while exploring the complicated history behind Böttger’s quest to discover the formula for porcelain in a clifftop fortress outside Dresden in the early 18th century.