Castle, his hunting lodges. He greatly expanded the Saxon Palace in Warsaw with the adjacent Saxon Garden, which became the city's oldest public park and one of the first publicly accessible parks in the world. He also expanded the Wilanów Palace. He granted composer Johann Adolph Hasse the title of the Royal-Polish and Electoral-Saxon Kapellmeister in 1731. A man of pleasure, the king sponsored lavish court balls, Venetian-style balli in maschera, and luxurious court gatherings, games, and garden festivities. His court acquired a reputation for extravagance throughout Europe. He held a famous animal-tossing contest in Dresden at which 647 foxes, 533 hares, 34 badgers and 21 wildcats were tossed and killed. Augustus himself participated, reportedly demonstrating his strength by holding the end of his sling by just one finger, with two of the strongest men in his court on the other end. Gallery Meissen porcelain Augustus II successfully sponsored efforts to discover the secret of manufacturing porcelain. In 1701 he rescued the young alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger, who had fled from the court of the king of Prussia, Frederick I, who had expected that he produce gold for him as he had boasted he could. Augustus imprisoned Böttger and tried to force him to reveal the secret of manufacturing gold. Böttger's transition from alchemist to potter was orchestrated as an attempt to avoid the impossible demands of the king. Being an alchemist by profession rather than a potter, gave Böttger an advantage. He realised that the current approaches, which involved mixing fine white substances like crushed egg shells into clay, would not work. Rather, his approach was to attempt to bake clay at higher temperatures than had ever before been attained in European kilns. That approach yielded the breakthrough that had eluded European potters for a century. By the king's decree, the Royal-Polish and Electoral-Saxon Porcelain Manufactory was established in Meissen in 1709. The manufacture of fine porcelain continues at the Meissen porcelain factory. Order of the White Eagle In November 1705 in Tykocin, Augustus founded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's first and preeminent order of chivalry. In 1723 he bought the Großsedlitz estate near Dresden, and after expanding the palace and garden complex, in 1727 he organized there the first ever festivities of the Order of the White Eagle. In Warsaw, the Saxon Garden (Polish: Ogród Saski) commemorates the role of Augustus II in expanding the city's