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Verseuse phénix Musée Guimet 2418

Northern Song celadon porcelain, 10th century, China.

ChelseaSwanTureeen

Soft-paste porcelain Swan tureen, 1752-6, Chelsea.

Archivo:Centro de flores (Porcelana Buen Retiro, MAN 1982-85-5) 01.jpg

Flower centerpiece, 18th century, Spain.

Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1200 °C (2192 °F) and 1400 °C (2552 °F). The toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain arise mainly from the formation of glass and the mineral mullite within the fired body at these high temperatures.

Porcelain derives its present name from old Italian porcellana (cowrie shell) because of its resemblance to the translucent surface of the shell.[1] Porcelain can informally be referred to as "china" in some English-speaking countries, as China was the birth place of porcelain making.[2] Properties associated with porcelain include low permeability and elasticity; considerable strength, hardness, glassiness, brittleness, whiteness, translucence, and resonance; and a high resistance to chemical attack and thermal shock.

For the purposes of trade, the Combined Nomenclature of the European Communities defines porcelain as being "completely vitrified, hard, impermeable (even before glazing), white or artificially coloured, translucent (except when of considerable thickness) and resonant." However, the term porcelain lacks a universal definition and has "been applied in a very unsystematic fashion to substances of diverse kinds which have only certain surface-qualities in common" (Burton 1906).

Porcelain is used to make table, kitchen, sanitary, and decorative wares; objects of fine art; and tiles. Its high resistance to the passage of electricity makes porcelain an excellent insulator. Dental porcelain is used to make false teeth, caps, crowns and veneers.

Scope, materials and methods[]

Scope[]

The most common uses of porcelain are the creation of artistic objects and the production of more utilitarian wares. It is difficult to distinguish between stoneware and porcelain because this depends upon how the terms are defined. A useful working definition of porcelain might include a broad range of ceramic wares, including some that could be classified as a stoneware.

Materials[]

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Porte-chapeau-082006

Chinese porcelain from the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1735-1796)

Clay is generally thought to be the primary material from which porcelain is made, even though clay minerals might account for only a small proportion of the whole. The word "paste" is an old term for both the unfired and fired material. A more common terminology these days for the unfired material is "body", for example, when buying materials a potter might order an amount of porcelain body from a vendor.

The composition of porcelain is highly variable, but the clay mineral kaolinite is often a significant component. Other materials can include feldspar, ball clay, glass, bone ash, steatite, quartz, petuntse and alabaster; further information on these formulations is given at "soft-paste porcelain".

The clays used are often described as being long or short, depending on their plasticity. Long clays are cohesive (sticky) and have high plasticity; short clays are less cohesive and have lower plasticity. In soil mechanics, plasticity is determined by measuring the increase in content of water required to change a clay from a solid state bordering on the plastic, to a plastic state bordering on the liquid, though the term is also used less formally to describe the facility with which a clay may be worked. Clays used for porcelain are generally of lower plasticity and are shorter than many other pottery clays. They wet very quickly, meaning that small changes in the content of water can produce large changes in workability. Thus, the range of water content within which these clays can be worked is very narrow and the loss or gain of water during storage and throwing or forming must be carefully controlled to keep the clay from becoming too wet or too dry to manipulate.

Methods[]

Plantilla:Cleanup-section

Archivo:Korean celadon.jpg

Korean celadon incense burner from the Goryeo period

The following section provides background information on the methods used to form, decorate, finish, glaze, and fire ceramic wares.

Forming. is described in the Wikipedia articles Pottery and Ceramic forming techniques.

Glazing. Unlike their lower-fired counterparts, porcelain wares do not need glazing to render them impermeable to liquids and for the most part are glazed for decorative purposes and to make them resistant to dirt and staining. Great detail is given in the glaze article. Many types of glaze, such as the iron-containing glaze used on the celadon wares of Longquan, were designed specifically for their striking effects on porcelain.

Decoration. Porcelain wares may be decorated under the glaze using pigments that include cobalt and copper or over the glaze using coloured enamels. Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often bisque-fired at around 1,000 degrees Celsius, coated with glaze and then sent for a second glaze-firing at a temperature of about 1,300 degrees Celsius or greater. Another early method is once-fired where the glaze is applied to the unfired body and the two fired together in a single operation.

Archivo:CzechdollS.jpg

A porcelain doll from the Czech Republic

Firing. In this process, green (unfired) ceramic wares are heated to high temperatures in a kiln to permanently set their shapes. Porcelain is fired at a higher temperature than earthenware so that the body can vitrify and become non-porous.

Categories of porcelain[]

Porcelain can be divided into the three main categories: hard-paste, soft-paste, and bone, depending on the composition of the paste, the material used to form the body of a porcelain object.

Hard paste[]

Main article Hard-paste porcelain

Some of the earliest European porcelains were produced at the Meissen factory in the early 18th century; they were formed from a paste composed of kaolinite, quartz, and alabaster and fired at temperatures in excess of 1350 °C (2462 °F), producing a porcelain of great hardness and strength. Later, the composition of the Meissen hard paste was changed and the alabaster was replaced by feldspar, allowing the pieces to be fired at lower temperatures. Kaolinite, feldspar and quartz (or other forms of silica) continue to provide the basic ingredients for most continental European hard-paste porcelains.

Soft paste[]

Main article Soft-paste porcelain

Its history dates from the early attempts by European potters to replicate Chinese porcelain by using mixtures of china clay and ground-up glass or frit; soapstone and lime were known to have also been included in some compositions. As these early formulations suffered from high pyroplastic deformation, or slumping in the kiln at raised temperature, they were uneconomic to produce. Formulations were later developed based on kaolin, quartz, feldspars, nepheline syenite and other feldspathic rocks. These were technically superior and continue in production.

Bone china[]

Main article Bone China

Although originally developed in England to compete with imported porcelain, Bone china is now made worldwide. It has been suggested[by whom?]that a misunderstanding of an account of porcelain manufacture in China given by a Jesuit missionary was responsible for the first attempts to use bone-ash as an ingredient of Western porcelain (in China, china clay was sometimes described as forming the bones of the paste, while the flesh was provided by refined porcelain stone)[citation needed]. For whatever reason, when it was first tried it was found that adding bone-ash to the paste produced a white, strong, translucent porcelain. Traditionally English bone china was made from two parts of bone-ash, one part of china clay kaolin and one part china stone (a feldspathic rock), although this has largely been replaced by feldspars from non-UK sources.[3]

History[]

Chinese porcelain[]

Main gallery: Chinese ceramics.
System-search ⧼Seealso⧽: List of Chinese inventions
Archivo:Kangxi plate in bristol city museum arp.jpg

A Chinese porcelain-ware displaying battles between dragons, Kangxi era (1662-1722), Qing Dynasty.

Porcelain is generally believed to have originated in China. Although proto-porcelain wares exist dating from the Shang Dynasty about 1600 BCE, by the Eastern Han Dynasty (100-200 BCE) high firing glazed ceramic wares had developed into porcelain, and porcelain manufactured during the Tang Dynasty period (618–906) was exported to the Islamic world, where it was highly prized.[4] Early porcelain of this type includes the tri-color glazed porcelain, or sancai wares. Historian S.A.M. Adshead writes that true porcelain items in the restrictive sense that we know them today could be found in dynasties after the Tang,[5] during the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties.

By the Sui (about 580 AD) and Tang (about 620 AD) dynasties, porcelain had become widely produced. Eventually, porcelain and the expertise required to create it began to spread into other areas; by the seventeenth century, it was being exported to Europe.

Korean and Japanese porcelain also have long histories and distinct artistic traditions.

European porcelain[]

Lettre du pere Entrecolles 1712 du Halde 1735

Letter of Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles about Chinese porcelain manufactuting techniques, 1712, published by du Halde in 1735.

These exported Chinese porcelains of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were held in such great esteem in Europe that in the English language china became a commonly–used synonym for the Franco-Italian term porcelain. Apart from copying Chinese porclelain in faience (tin glazed earthenware), the soft-paste Medici porcelain in 16th-century Florence was the first real European attempt to reproduce it, with little success.

The European search for the secret of porcelain manufacture ended in 1708 with the discovery by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and Johann Friedrich Böttger of a combination of ingredients, including Colditz clay (a source of kaolinite), calcined alabaster, and quartz, that produced a hard, white, translucent porcelain. It appears that in this discovery technology transfer from East Asia played little part.

The Chinese manufacturing secrets for porcelain manufacturing were revealed by the Jesuit Father Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles in 1712, and openly published in 1735.

Meissen[]

Archivo:Meissen porcelain candalebra.jpg

Meissen porcelain - 19th Century pair of candelabras and a clock.

Tschirnhaus and Böttger were employed by Augustus the Strong and worked at Dresden and Meissen in the German state of Saxony. Tschirnhaus had a wide knowledge of European science and had been involved in the European quest to perfect porcelain manufacture when in 1705 Böttger was appointed to assist him in this task. Böttger had originally been trained as a pharmacist; after he turned to alchemical research, it was his claim that he knew the secret of transmuting dross into gold that attracted the attention of Augustus. Imprisoned by Augustus as an incentive to hasten his research, Böttger was obliged to work with other alchemists in the futile search for transmutation and was eventually assigned to assist Tschirnhaus. One of the first results of the collaboration between the two was the development of a red stoneware that resembled the red stoneware of Yixing.

A workshop note records that the first specimen of hard, white European porcelain was produced in January 1708. At the time, the research was still being supervised by Tschirnhaus; however, he died in October of that year. It was left to Böttger to report to Augustus in March 1709 that he could make true white porcelain. For this reason, credit for the European discovery of porcelain is traditionally ascribed to him rather than Tschirnhaus.[6]

The Meissen factory was established in 1710 after the development of a kiln and a glaze suitable for use with Böttger's porcelain, which required firing at temperatures greater than 1350 °C (2462 °F) to achieve translucence. Meissen porcelain was once-fired, or green-fired. It was noted for its great resistance to thermal shock; a visitor to the factory in Böttger's time reported having seen a white-hot teapot being removed from the kiln and dropped into cold water without damage. Evidence to support this widely disbelieved story was given in the 1980s when the procedure was repeated in an experiment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[citation needed]

Soft paste porcelain[]

Main gallery: Soft-paste porcelain.
Saint Cloud bowl soft porcelain with blue decorations under glaze 1700 1710

Saint-Cloud manufactory soft porcelain bowl, with blue decoration under glaze, 1700-1710.

The pastes produced by combining clay and powdered glass (frit) were called Frittenporzellan in Germany and frita in Spain. In France they were known as pâte tendre and in England as "soft-paste";[7] they appear to have been given this name because they do not easily retain their shape in the wet state, or because they tend to slump in the kiln under high temperature, or because the body and the glaze can be easily scratched.

Experiments at Rouen produced the earliest soft-paste in France, but the first important French porcelain was made at the Saint-Cloud factory before 1702. Soft-paste factories were established with the Chantilly manufactory in 1730 and at Mennecy in 1750. The Vincennes porcelain factory was established in 1740, moving to larger premises at Sèvres[8] in 1756. Vincennes soft-paste was whiter and freer of imperfections than any of its French rivals, which put Vincennes/Sèvres porcelain in the leading position in France and throughout the whole of Europe in the second half of the 18th century.[9]

The first soft-paste in England was demonstrated by Thomas Briand to the Royal Society in 1742 and is believed to have been based on the Saint-Cloud formula. In 1749, Thomas Frye took out a patent on a porcelain containing bone ash. This was the first bone china, subsequently perfected by Josiah Spode.

In the fifteen years after Briand's demonstration, half a dozen factories were founded in England to make soft-paste table-wares and figures:

Other developments[]

William Cookworthy discovered deposits of china clay in Cornwall, making a considerable contribution to the development of porcelain and other whiteware ceramics in the United Kingdom. Cookworthy's factory at Plymouth, established in 1768, used Cornish china clay and china stone to make porcelain with a body composition similar to that of the Chinese porcelains of the early eighteenth century.

As an electric insulating material[]

Archivo:Insulator.jpg

porcelain insulator for medium high voltage

Porcelain is an excellent insulator for use at high voltage, especially in outdoor applications. Examples are: terminals for High voltage cables, bushings of power transformers, insulation of high frequency antennas and many other cases.

As a building material[]

Archivo:Dakinbldg.jpg

Dakin Building, Brisbane, California using porcelain panels

Transparent porcelain

Demonstration of the translucent quality of much porcelain.

Porcelain can be used as a building material, usually in the form of tiles or large rectangular panels. Modern porcelain tiles are generally produced to a number of recognised international standards and definitions.[21][22] Manufacturers are found across the world[23] with Italy being the global leader, producing over 380 million square metres in 2006[24]. Historic examples of rooms decorated entirely in porcelain tiles can be found in several European palaces including ones at Capodimonte, Naples, the Royal Palace of Madrid and the nearby Royal Palace of Aranjuez.[25] and the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing in China. More recent noteworthy examples include The Dakin Building in Brisbane, California and the Gulf Building in Houston, Texas which, when constructed in 1929, had a 70-foot-long (Plantilla:Convert/LoffAonSon) porcelain logo on its exterior.[26] A more detailed description of the history, manufacture and properties of porcelain tiles is given in the article “Porcelain Tile: The Revolution Is Only Beginning.”[26]

Types porcelain[]

  • Austria
    • Augarten porcelain
  • Denmark
  • Finland
    • Arabia
  • France
  • Germany
    • Barbara Flügel
    • Arzberg porcelain
    • Frankenthal Porcelain
    • Hutschenreuther of Selb
    • Meissen porcelain
    • Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory
    • Rosenthal
    • Villeroy & Boch
  • Hungary
    • Alföldi
    • Herend Porcelain
    • Hollóházi
    • Zsolnay
  • Japan
    • Noritake
  • Norway
    • Porsgrund
  • Poland
    • Chodzież
    • Ćmielów
    • Horodnica
    • Wałbrzych
  • Romania
    • Apulum SA
  • Italy
    • Capodimonte porcelain
    • Majello Capodimonte
  • Portugal
    • Vista Alegre
  • Russia
    • Gzhel
    • Lomonosov
  • Spain
  • Turkey
  • United Kingdom
    • Belleek
    • Chelsea porcelain factory
    • Coalport
    • Davenport
    • Goss crested china
    • Josiah Spode
    • Josiah Wedgwood
    • Liverpool porcelain
    • Mintons Ltd
    • New Hall porcelain
    • Plymouth Porcelain
    • Rockingham Pottery
    • Royal Crown Derby
    • Royal Doulton
    • Royal Worcester
  • United States
  • Brazil
    • Porcelana Schmidt

See also[]

References[]

  1. Oxford English Dictionary: "The ceramic material was apparently so named on account of the resemblance of its translucent surface to the nacreous shell of the mollusc. [...] The cowrie was probably originally so named on account of the resemblance of the fissure of its shell to a vulva (it is unclear whether the reference is spec. to the vulva of a sow)."
  2. OED, "China"; An Introduction to Pottery. 2nd edition. Rado P. Institute of Ceramic / Pergamon Press. 1988. Usage of "china" in this sense is inconsistent, & it may be used of other types of ceramics also.
  3. Changes & Developments Of Non-plastic Raw Materials. Sugden A. International Ceramics Issue 2 2001.
  4. Porcelain. Columbia Encyclopedia Sixth Edition. 2008. Retrieved on 2008-06-27.
  5. Adshead, S.A.M. (2004). T'ang China: The Rise of the East in World History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-3456-8 (hardback). Page 80 & 83.
  6. Gleeson, Janet. The Arcanum, an accurate historic novel on the greed, obsession, murder and betrayal that led to the creation of Meissen porcelain. Bantam Books, London, 1998.
  7. Honey, W.B., European Ceramic Art, Faber and Faber, 1952, p.533
  8. Metropolitan Museum of Art
  9. Metropolitan Museum of Art
  10. ‘Science Of Early English Porcelain.’ I.C. Freestone. Sixth Conference and Exhibition of the European Ceramic Society. Vol.1 Brighton, 20-24 June 1999, p.11-17
  11. ‘The Sites Of The Chelsea Porcelain Factory.’ E.Adams. Ceramics (1), 55, 1986.
  12. [1]
  13. [2]
  14. 14,0 14,1 [3]
  15. [4]
  16. ‘Ceramic Figureheads. Pt. 3. William Littler And The Origins Of Porcelain In Staffordshire.’ Cookson Mon. Bull. Ceram. Ind. (550), 1986.
  17. [5]
  18. History of Royal Crown Derby Co Ltd, from "British Potters and Potteries Today", publ 1956
  19. 'The Lowestoft Porcelain Factory, and the Chinese Porcelain Made for the European Market during the Eighteenth Century.' L. Solon. The Burlington Magazine. No. 6. Vol.II. August 1906.
  20. [6]
  21. “New American Standard Defines Polished Porcelain By The Porcelain Tile Certification Agency.” Tile Today No.56, 2007.
  22. Porcelain tile as defined in ASTM C242 - 01(2007) Standard Terminology of Ceramic Whitewares and Related Products published by ASTM International.
  23. ’Manufacturers Of Porcelain Tiles’ Ceram.World Rev. 6, No.19, 1996 … ‘The main manufacturers of porcelain tiles in Italy, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas are listed.’
  24. ”Italian Porcelain Tile Production At The Top” Ind.Ceram. 27, No.2, 2007.
  25. Porcelain Room, Aranjuez Comprehensive but shaky video
  26. 26,0 26,1 “Porcelain Tile: The Revolution Is Only Beginning.” Tile Decorative Surf. 42, No.11, 1992.
  • Combined Nomenclature of the European Communities - EC Commission in Luxembourg, 1987 .
  • Burton, William. Porcelain, its Nature, Art and Manufacture. Batsford, London, 1906.

External links[]




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