From the mid-1740s on imaginative depictions of mining scenes increasingly adorned vessels
from the Meissen Royal Porcelain Manufactory. This publication explores the Middelschulte
collection at the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum. Text in German. From the mid-1740s on
imaginative depictions of mining scenes increasingly adorned vessels from the Meissen Royal
Porcelain Manufactory. Prior to this sculptural depictions of mining folk can even be found on
Böttger stoneware and Böttger porcelain—with artists George Fritzsche Sr (probably 1697–1756)
and Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706–1775) later each dedicating a series to them. The unique
combination of mining and porcelain also informed and inspired other manufactories in the
German-speaking realm for example in Berlin Fürstenberg and Vienna. Achim and Beate
Middelschulte have assembled what is probably the world’s most extensive collection of
porcelain featuring the subject of mining. A significant selection of this has been transferred
to a foundation and incorporated as a permanent loan into the collection at the Deutsches
Bergbau-Museum Bochum (German Mining Museum in Bochum). An in-depth presentation of these
pieces is now available in this publication. Text in German.
