Arcanum: The Extraordinary True Story

Will Lee

Gleeson handles this historical account...with the cool, flawless elegance of her star material...Proving herself a verbal alchemist. —Entertainment Weekly

Library Journal

The story of Johann Friedrich Bottger, imprisoned by a greedy king after discovering how to make porcelain. A No. 1 London Times best seller.

David Battie

A wonderful and gripping story....Entertaining.
-- London Times

Nick Hornby

The amazing intrigues, power plays and betrayals make this book of historical biography and scientific discovery brilliantly original and my pick of the month. -- The Bookseller

Will Lee

Gleeson handles this historical account...with the cool, flawless elegance of her star material...Proving herself a verbal alchemist. --Entertainment Weekly

Merle Rubin

Immensely readable...a riveting narrative, richly detailed and vividly descriptive....An exemplary piece of storytelling.
— Los Angeles Times

Seattle Times/ Post-Intelligencer

Tells the strange tale of the European developer of fine porcelain....Court decadence, chicanery and dinner services for 2,200 -- now that's a story!

Kirkus Reviews

The often exciting-and always absorbing-story of the European development of the formula for making fine porcelain and the growth of the Meissen works that led the way. The "arcanum" usually refers to the age-old quest for a recipe for turning base metals into gold. Gleeson uses it appropriately here not only because porcelain became known as "white gold" in 18th-century Europe, but also because Johann Frederick Böttger, the alchemist who first created European porcelain, had originally set out to make gold. Having rashly claimed-and "demonstrated"-that he could do so, Böttger was imprisoned in 1701 by the greedy Augustus II, king of Poland and elector of Saxony. Augustus, whose appetite for women and riches was legendary, held Böttger for decades; while his gold-making experiments failed repeatedly, he was given the task of discovering the ancient Chinese secret of making porcelain. Böttger eventually did make fine white porcelain from gray clay, prompting his "ironic testimony" above his laboratory door: "God has made a potter from a gold-maker." Never granted his freedom, Böttger was made head of the king's porcelain factory at Meissen. Gleeson traces the history and development of porcelain artistry from there by following the careers of the mean-spirited Johann Gregor Herold, an artist whose inventive colors and patterns set the standard, and the sculptor Johann Joachim Kaendler, whose fine work in 1730s Dresden would bring about a bitter rivalry with Herold. The sublime results of their competitive work can still be viewed in the museums of Dresden and Meissen. Gleeson does a marvelous job of relating court intrigue, decadence, and chicanery; but herdescriptions of 2,200-piece dinner services and the lavish banquets on tables decorated by porcelain finery, including an eight-foot-high model of the Piazza Navona with running rosewater, steal the show.