Dresden -- from the Sorbish, meaning "dwellers in the marshy forest," was transformed in the late Renaissance from a Slav village to the jewel in the crown of the Duchy of Sachsen. This evolution had much to do with the art patronage of two monarchs, Frederick Augustus I, Elector of Saxony (1670-1733) -- also known as August the Strong due to his imposing stature and physical strength -- and his son Frederick Augustus II (1696-1763) -- later Augustus III, King of Poland.
The forum for this display is "The State Collections Dresden, Mirror of the World," a recently opened exhibition that will travel to Tokyo after its current showing at the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, that is one of the major projects of "Germany Year in Japan."
The "mirror" metaphor of the title runs through the exhibition in various forms; as in the Meissen porcelain copies of Chinese and Japanese ceramics that allude to artistic reflections of the East in the West, and, more generally, to Dresden's artistic culture, which was modeled after the French court of Louis XIV, whose palace in Versailles housed the famous Hall of Mirrors.