Tea bowl and saucer, Anna Elizabeth Wald (decorator), Auffenwerth Workshop, Meissen (manufacturer), ca.1725-1730. Hard-paste porcelain with gilded, tooled decoration and painted overglaze enamels. Chitra Collection, no 1478. © Chitra Collection

Before the decorative workshops were established at Meissen, plain white porcelain wares were often sold onto hausmalers (house painters), who would decorate and sell the pieces from their own workhops. Hausmaler activity flourished in cities such as Augsburg, a city renowned for being a centre of high quality artisanal trade. Although the hausmalerei system was at first accepted by Meissen, it soon became viewed as a competitive practice that they sought to stop.