The House of Wittelsbach is a former Bavarian dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including the Electorate of Bavaria, the Electoral Palatinate, the Electorate of Cologne, Holland, Zeeland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Bohemia, and Greece. Their ancestral lands of Bavaria and the Palatinate were prince-electorates, and the family had three of its members elected emperors and kings of the Holy Roman Empire. They ruled over the Kingdom of Bavaria which was created in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918.
Otto was King of Bavaria from 1886 until 1913. However, he never actively ruled because of alleged severe mental illness. His uncle, Luitpold, and his cousin, Ludwig, served as regents. Ludwig deposed him in 1913, a day after the legislature passed a law allowing him to do so, and became king in his own right as Ludwig III.
The Nymphenburg Palace is a Baroque palace situated in Munich's western district Neuhausen-Nymphenburg, in Bavaria, southern Germany. The Nymphenburg served as the main summer residence for the former rulers of Bavaria of the House of Wittelsbach. Combined with the adjacent Nymphenburg Palace Park it constitutes one of the premier royal palaces of Europe. Its frontal width of 632 m (2,073 ft) even surpasses Versailles.
Luitpold Karl Joseph Wilhelm Ludwig, Prince Regent of Bavaria, was the de facto ruler of Bavaria from 1886 to 1912, as regent for his nephews, King Ludwig II and King Otto. His regency arose due to his nephews' mental incapacity.
Meissen porcelain or Meissen china was the first European hard-paste porcelain. Early experiments were done in 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger continued von Tschirnhaus's work and brought this type of porcelain to the market, financed by Augustus the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. The production of porcelain in the royal factory at Meissen, near Dresden, started in 1710 and attracted artists and artisans to establish, arguably, the most famous porcelain manufacturer known throughout the world. Its signature logo, the crossed swords, was introduced in 1720 to protect its production; the mark of the swords is reportedly one of the oldest trademarks in existence.
Marie of Prussia was Queen of Bavaria by marriage to Maximilian II of Bavaria, and the mother of Kings Ludwig II and Otto of Bavaria.
Allach porcelain a.k.a. Porzellan Manufaktur Allach was produced in Germany between 1935 and 1945. After its first year of operation, the enterprise was run by the SS with forced labor provided by the Dachau concentration camp. The emphasis was on decorative ceramics —objets d'art for the Nazi regime. The company logo included stylized SS runes. Sometimes in place of the company name, the pottery markings mentioned the SS: "DES - WIRTSCHAFTS - VERWALTUNGSHAUPTAMTES". Ceramic artist, master potter and author Edmund de Waal describes the double-lightning insignia of the SS that marked the Allach products as a clever transposition of Germany's famed Meissen porcelain mark of two crossed swords.
Prince Ludwig Ferdinand Maria Karl Heinrich Adalbert Franz Philipp Andreas Konstantin of Bavaria was a member of the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach and a General of Cavalry. Following his marriage to Infanta María de la Paz of Spain, he was also created an Infante of Spain.
The Sächsische Porzellan-Manufaktur Dresden GmbH, generally known in English as Dresden Porcelain, was a German company for the production of decorative and luxury porcelain. Founded in 1872, it was located in Potschappel, a suburb of the town of Freital in the Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district about 8 km (5 mi) southwest of Dresden, the capital of Saxony.
The Frankenthal Porcelain Factory was one of the greatest porcelain manufacturers of Germany and operated in Frankenthal in the Rhineland-Palatinate between 1755 and 1799. From the start they made hard-paste porcelain, and produced both figurines and dishware of very high quality, somewhat reflecting in style the French origin of the business, especially in their floral painting. Initially they were a private business, but from 1761 were owned by the local ruler, like most German porcelain factories of the period.
Prince Adalbert Wilhelm Georg Ludwig of Bavaria was the ninth child and fourth son of Ludwig I of Bavaria and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen.
Prince Ludwig of Bavaria was a member of the Bavarian Royal House of Wittelsbach.
Luitpold Rupprecht Heinrich Prinz von Bayern is a member and second in line of succession to the headship of the House of Wittelsbach, which reigned as Kings of Bavaria until 1918, and the head of König Ludwig Schlossbrauerei.
Franz Anton Bustelli was a Swiss-born German modeller for the Bavarian Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory from 1754 to his death in 1763. He is widely regarded as the finest modeller of porcelain in the Rococo style: "if the art of European porcelain finds its most perfect expression in the rococo style, so the style finds its most perfect expression in the work of Bustelli".
Ludwig II, also called the Swan King or the Fairy Tale King, was King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886. He also held the titles of Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, Duke of Franconia, and Duke in Swabia. Outside Germany, he is at times called "the Mad King" or Mad King Ludwig.
The Royal Porcelain Factory in Berlin, also known as the Royal Porcelain Manufactory Berlin and whose products are generally called Berlin porcelain, was founded in 1763 by King Frederick II of Prussia. Its actual origins, however, lie in three private enterprises which, under crown patronage, were trying to establish the production of "white gold" in Berlin from the mid-18th century onwards.
Neuhausen-Nymphenburg is a borough of Munich, the capital of the German state of Bavaria. It was created from the merger of the former boroughs of Neuhausen and Nymphenburg in 1992.
Sigmund Graf von Haimhausen was a Bavarian aristocrat, mining operator, head of the Bavarian Mint and Mines commission, porcelain manufacturer and first president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Munich:
Ludwigsburg porcelain is porcelain made at the Ludwigsburg Porcelain Manufactory founded by Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg, on 5 April 1758 by decree as the Herzoglich-ächte Porcelaine-Fabrique. It operated from the grounds of the Baroque Ludwigsburg Palace. After a first two decades that were artistically, but not financially, successful, the factory went into a slow decline and was closed in 1824. Much later a series of other companies used the Ludwigsburg name, but the last production was in 2010.
