Meissen for royalty.(Meissen porcelain, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA)(Brief Article)

Augustus II (the Strong), elector of Saxony (r. 1694-1733) and king of Poland (r. 1697-1704 and 1709-1733), possessed that rare combination of traits that makes a great collector--excellent taste for both the rare and the exotic and the deep pockets necessary to indulge every desire. This is no better exemplified than in his commission for a group of nearly life-sized porcelain sculptures of birds and other animals that he intended for the long gallery in the Japanese Palace in Dresden. The commission was an important one for the Meissen factory which used two exacting and artistically gifted men, Johann Gottlieb Kirchner and Johann Joachim Kandler, to execute it between 1730 and 1735. Figures continued to be created until about 1740, when work on the long gallery ceased.

Making figures that were sometimes more than four feet tall was incredibly difficult at the time. The figures were conceived to be painted naturalistically in enamel colors, but this proved to be beyond the technology of the time, so they remained white. This group of historically important and beautiful figures is in the state collection at the former royal palace, the Zwinger, in Dresden, and due to their fragility, they are rarely loaned. However, in a partnership between the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen of Dresden, fourteen of these porcelain animals may be seen at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles until January 31, 2002, in an exhibition entitled A Royal Menagerie: Porcelain Animals from Dresden.

Augustus the Strong had one of the most important porcelain collections in Europe, which was greatly influenced by the one Louis XIV installed in the Trianon de Porcelaine at Versailles. During a tour in 1687 Augustus visited the gardens there, which contained a menagerie and a maze with bronze animals.

Some years after Augustus's death a visitor described ...