Due to the historical shifting borders of Poland, the story of the rise and fall and rise of its porcelain is also the story of Saxon, Prussian, German and Russian porcelain. Shifting over geographical areas of production and identified as products of countries ruling what is now – since World War I – the republic of Poland. German aristocrats residing in areas such as West Prussia (where the Polish city of Poznań is now, originally called Posen when part of Germany) and Upper Silesia, were the first to form significant collections of Meissen porcelain. This is the type of china first discovered and perfected in the court of Augustus II the Strong, Elector of Saxony (1670-1733), King of Lithuania and Poland, who settled in Dresden and underwrote Europe’s first porcelains which were fabricated in the suburb of Meissen. With the discovery of the missing ingredient of porcelain (kaolin, mined in Bohemia) in 1710, all the crowned heads of Europe wanted their own factories and collections, but Meissen-ware became synonymous with the first and finest examples. So rare and valuable were the Meissen tablewares that the alchemist who finally happened on the perfect recipe, Johann Böttger (1682-1719), was put under Schloss arrest for the remainder of his life. Foolishly, King Augustus thought he could maintain a monopoly on the prized formulae. It was not to be.