Marco Polo

Marco Polo (* 1254; † 8 January 1324 in Venice) was a Venetian merchant who is considered one of the greatest explorers in world history.

One of the goods that Marco Polo brought to Europe after his stay in Asia was porcelain. This was completely unknown in Europe. This noble and splendid tableware quickly sparked a desire in the noble houses to own it and make it themselves. They discovered early on that porcelain was (and still is!) far more suitable for holding food than gold, silver or any other material used for this purpose.

Marco Polo's import of Chinese porcelain to Europe was the birth or "big bang" of porcelain production. It took quite a while before people on this side of the globe were able to produce real porcelain. But it was thanks to him alone that the desire arose to be able to produce the white gold themselves. It then took another four centuries until J.F. Böttger and E.W. von Tschirnhaus in Dresden - near the city of Meissen - finally succeeded in unravelling the hitherto unsolved secret of porcelain production by the Chinese and producing a porcelain-like body.