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Porcelain is a type of hard semi-translucent ceramic fired at a higher temperature than glazed earthenware, or pottery. It is white, but mildly translucent and can be decorated to provide colour. 1 Chinese Porcelain
Chinese porcelain is made from a hard paste comprised of the clay kaolin and a feldspar called petuntse, which cements the vessel and seals any pores. China is high-quality porcelain. Most china comes from the city of Jingdezhen in China's Jiangxi province.
1.1 History
Jingdezhen, under a variety of names, has been central to porcelain production in China since at least the early Han Dynasty. Earliest techniques were very primitive, barely above the level of mere pottery. By the time of the Southern and Northern Dynasty period, however, techniques had been refined to the point that the clay in Jingdezhen made for what could be called porcelain.
The Sui and Tang Dynasties introduced high-temperature kilns, bringing with it the pure, translucent whites, attractive to the eye, as well as a variety of advanced glazingGlazing in architecture, is a transparent part of a wall, usually made of glass or plastic. See also Insulated glazing Solar thermal collector Building construction Construction. techniques resulting in smooth, durable porcelain. The resulting product was often referred to as "false jadeAn ornamental stone, jade is a name applied to two different silicate minerals. Nephrite is a form of the amphibole, actinolite (a mineral that also includes a form of asbestos). The second, the mineral jadeite, is a pyroxene. Nephrite has the formula Ca(".
1.2 Techniques
The most noticeable difference between porcelain and the other pottery clays is that it 'wets' very quickly (that is, added water has a noticably greater effect on the plasticity for porcelain than other clays), and that it tends to continue to 'move' for longer than other clays, requiring experience in handling to attain optimum results.
Porcelain is typically biscuit fired at around 1000 degrees CelsiusThe degree Celsius (°C) is a unit of temperature named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius ( 1701 1744), who first proposed it in 1742. The Celsius temperature scale was designed so that the freezing point of water is 0 degrees, and the boiling po (1800 degrees FahrenheitThis article is about the temperature scale; see also Fahrenheit graphics API. Fahrenheit is a temperature scale named after the German physicist Gabriel Fahrenheit ( 1686 1736), who proposed it in 1724. In this scale, the freezing point of water is 32 de), and glaze fired (the final firing) at around 1300°C (2300°F).
1.3 See also
- TangshanTangshan (: Tangshn shi) is a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, People's Republic of China. History Tangshan suffered an earthquake on July 28, 1976, which registered 8. 2 on the Richter scale and caused enormous casualties. The official death toll, HebeiNot to be confused with the unrelated province of Hubei Hebei ( Hanyu Pinyin: Hebei, Wade-Giles: Ho-pei, Postal system pinyin: Hopeh , is a northern province of the People's Republic of China. Its one- character abbreviation is ( pinyin: ji), named after province
2 Japanese porcelain
- Imari porcelainImari porcelain is the European collectors' name for Japanese wares made at Arita, in the former Hizen Province, northwestern Kyushu, and exported from the port of Imari, Saga specifically for the European export trade. Imari was simply the trans-shipment
- Japanese pottery
3 European Porcelain
The European Porcelain was invented in Dresden and Meissen ( Germany), under the rule of King "August the strong" ( 1694- 1733). There is also the biggest porcelain collection of the world. In a period when the Chinese and Japanese held the secret how to produce porcelain, August the Strong set out to discover the hidden process. For over 200 years Europeans had unsuccessfully played alchemist to the Japanese and Chinese porcelain masters, until Johann Friedrich Böttger unearthed the recipe to cure August of his mad obsession with white gold.
The Europeans used a soft paste, which makes for weaker porcelain than the Chinese method. To compensate, around 1750 the English began to use calcined bone ash to strengthen their porcelain, with the resulting material (typically comprising 25% to 50% bone ash) becoming known as bone china .
