>Home>Craft Ideas>Porcelain>The History of Porcelain

Porcelain

The History of Porcelain

Precursor of Porcelain: Chinese Celadon

The early history of porcelain took place primarily in China, which explains why porcelain is also known as china. As early as 100 A.D., Chinese artisans had developed kilns capable of high-firing pots. However, the techniques and materials were still quite crude.

Pots were formed by hand, rather than on a wheel. The clays contained some kaolin, but were not porcelain white. Glazes were limited in color and frequently did not fire to a smooth surface. Still, these high-fired and durable pots were such an advance over clay pots that China dominated the world in production of fine pottery for centuries.

It is possible that these early Chinese potters were trying to obtain the luminous green look of precious jade with their glazes. The colors ranged from gray green to blue green to deep jade green; and the glaze had a tendency to craze or develop an intricate network of lines when fired, also contributing to a stone-like appearance.

These greenish ceramics came to be known as celadon ware. One theory for the name, put forth by G. M. Gompertz, renowned author and collector of early Asian ceramics, is that the word derives from two Sanskrit words which combine to mean “sheathed in stone”, quite an apt description of celadon ware.

Some say the word celadon is a corruption of the Emperor Saladin’s name because he is said to have sent 40 pieces of celadon to another sultan in 1170 A.D. I suppose that’s possible, but I wonder what they called celadon for the previous thousand years of its existence!

Finally, some believe the word is taken from a character in a French play written in the 1800s. Isn’t it more likely that the character (who always appears wearing pale green ribbons) was named after the pale green porcelain?

Around 200 A.D., the Chinese began forming celadon ware on potting wheels. The result was a significant improvement in quality and artistry. The pots were more regularly shaped and had smooth walls of even density. Thicker glazes were used.

Celadon reached its artistic peak in the eight to eleventh centuries. From that period, we see the classic pale green glaze color that many associate with celadon china.

The First True Porcelain

Somewhere around 500 A.D., true white porcelain clay came into use in northern China and porcelain was born. White porcelain made it possible for artisans to begin putting representative art on china and so a new art form also was born.

Between 600 and 1200, there was a distinct rift between Chinese ceramists. Historians describe “six kiln factions”. Basically artisans in the north produced “North White” china and those in the south made “Celadon South”.

By 1100, the secret of making porcelain had spread to Korea. By 1400, Chinese-painted porcelain had reached the capitals of Europe.

Because of the expense of importing it halfway around the world, it was primarily purchased by the nobility to decorate their castles. European ceramists in Spain and Italy tried with little success to imitate the fine porcelain coming out of the Far East. Soft-paste porcelain, sometimes called artificial porcelain, was one result of their attempts.

Porcelain Production Goes Global

Once European ceramists stopped trying to imitate and focused on the raw materials available to them, many beautiful variations of white porcelain came into being.

By 1600, the Italians were known for their expertise with overglazes or enamels. In the 1750s the English developed decals or transfers which led to the manufacture of transferware and tremendously increased the market for painted porcelain.

Transferware was produced primarily in the Staffordshire region.

Other names you might recognize are Spode and Wedgwood.

You can distinguish transferware by the fine lines produced through the engraving process and also by the fact that most transferware was printed with just one color to require only one engraving plate.

Initially crafters painted in the transferred designs, using the transfer as one would a coloring book. However the public quickly came to appreciate the delicate and elaborate designs that could be printed using transfers and just one glaze color.

The earliest transferware used cobalt blue and the designs were typically Oriental, reflecting the origin of painted china. Red and brown also became popular transferware colors.

If the Industrial Revolution didn’t begin until the 1800s, the development of transferware was at least a prelude. It created jobs; expanded the supply of decorated china; and increased the demand for chinaware by bringing the shipping and labor costs down.

Germany’s Meissen porcelain (sometimes called Dresden porcelain) appeared about 1710. Interestingly, Meissen porcelain originally used alabaster as a flux (flux is a substance that facilitates fusion of glaze to fired clay), instead of feldspar and silica. This illustrates the tendency of ceramists to look locally for base materials.

Bone china, using bone ash as a flux, was created in England around 1750, and England still produces nearly all of the world's bone china.

Shortly thereafter, Limoges began producing its china in France using a fine white kaolin clay found only in one region of France. By the late 1800s, expert porcelain artists could be found in America and the fine art of painted porcelain literally spanned the globe.

Read about how porcelain is decorated.

  | Top | Porcelain | Crafts | Home |