The Royal Dresden Porcelain Collection sets new standards in the digital presentation of cultural heritage for museums. It showcases one of the world’s most significant collections of Chinese and Japanese porcelain and stoneware, assembled by Augustus the Strong (1670–1733) and housed at the Porzellansammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD).
The platform presents this collection in five interlinked catalogues, developed in close collaboration between curators, researchers, and digital specialists. Its foundation is built on a multi-year process of large-scale digitization of over 8,200 objects and related historical documents, enabling the integration of material culture with archival records in an innovative, accessible format.
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The “Royal East Asian Porcelain” catalogue offers a modern scholarly approach to the collection, while “The Historical Palace Inventories” present original documents alongside its German transcriptions and English translations. The “Visualised Palace Inventories” aim to reconstruct the historical context, by placing nearly 10,000 objects within their archival setting. This creates an illustrated inventory that also connects extant objects in the Porzellansammlung with those dispersed to collections and museums worldwide. Together, these resources provide provenance research, virtual reconstruction, and reinterpretation of early 18th-century collecting practices. Published in open access under Creative Commons licensing, the platform encourages further interdisciplinary research, and invites creative reuse.
The project exemplifies best practices in digital heritage: combining rigorous, international scholarship with innovative tools, and user-friendly design.
This invaluable resource has been made possible by the support of many generous institutions and sponsors, in particular the Bei Shan Tang Foundation in Hong Kong and the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung in Germany.
BGM Blauweiss Kabinett