Lion (one of a pair) ca. 1732 Meissen Manufactory German One of the most ambitious projects undertaken by any ceramic factory during the eighteenth century was the creation of a menagerie of porcelain animals by the Meissen factory in the first half of the 1730s. These figures of a lion and lioness were part of a vast commission of mammals and birds that was initiated at the factory by 1730.[1] and all of the animals were intended for display in the Japanese Palace, which was situated on the Elbe River in Dresden. In 1717, August II (1670–1733), commonly known as Augustus the Strong, elector o

Lion (one of a pair) ca. 1732 Meissen Manufactory German One of the most ambitious projects undertaken by any ceramic factory during the eighteenth century was the creation of a menagerie of porcelain animals by the Meissen factory in the first half of the 1730s. These figures of a lion and lioness were part of a vast commission of mammals and birds that was initiated at the factory by 1730.[1] and all of the animals were intended for display in the Japanese Palace, which was situated on the Elbe River in Dresden. In 1717, August II (1670–1733), commonly known as Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony, king of Poland, had purchased a much smaller building on the site, then known as the Dutch Palace. It was initially used for court festivities, but by 1725 it was decided that the Dutch Palace should be the setting for the vast holdings of porcelain amassed by Augustus the Strong and renamed the Japanese Palace. Construction commenced in 1729 to significantly remodel and expand the palace, and while plans were continually modified in the early 1730s, the intention was to display the Chinese and Japanese porcelains on the ground floor while reserving the upper floor for Meissen porcelain.[2] A large gallery on the upper floor was to be devoted to the porcelain animals, but the Japanese Palace had not been completed by the time of Augustus’s death in 1733. Work continued after 1733 on both the palace and the production of the animals; nevertheless, the entire project was abandoned by 1740 due to a variety of political factors and despite the initial commitment shown by August III (1696–1763), the son of Augustus the Strong.[3]No precedent existed for a project of this scope in terms of scale of the commission and the individual figures. A factory order from late 1733 lists 296 figures of 37 different mammals, and 292 birds of 32 different varieties, which represented the commission at its maximum size.[4] The technical challenges involved in producing these large

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