Chinese porcelain Part 2

History

A Chinese Tang Dynasty (ca. 700 AD) tri-color glazed porcelain horse, using yellow, green and white colors. In the context of Chinese ceramics the term porcelain lacks a universally accepted definition. This in turn has led to confusion about when the first Chinese porcelain was made. Claims have been made for the late Eastern Han period

(100 to 200 AD), the Three Kingdoms period (220 to 280 AD), the Six Dynasties period (220 to 589 AD), and the Tang Dynasty (618 to 906 AD). Some experts are currently of the view that the first true porcelain was made in the Chinese province of Zhejiang during the Eastern Han period. Chinese experts emphasize the presence of a significant proportion of porcelain-building minerals (china clay, porcelain stone or a combination of both) as an important factor in defining porcelain and shards recovered from Eastern Han kiln sites in Zhejiang, estimated to have been fired at a temperature of between 1260 to 1300 degrees Celsius, were found that met this condition (He Li 1996). However, so-called porcelaneous wares or proto-porcelain wares made using at least some kaolin and fired at high temperatures are known that date to well before the year 1000 BC. Unfortunately, the line that divides porcelaneous wares and proto-porcelain wares from true porcelain wares is not a clear one.

One of the first mentions of porcelain by a foreigner was made by an Arabian traveler in the eighth or ninth century (during the Tang Dynasty) who recorded that "They have in China a very fine clay with which they make vases which are as transparent as glass; water is seen through them. The vases are made of clay" (Bushell 1906). The Arabs were well acquainted with glass and there can be little doubt that the author of these words knew that the vases were not made of that material.

During the Sui and Tang periods (581 to 906) a wide range of ceramics, low-fired and high-fired, were produced. These included the well-known Tang lead-glazed sancai (three-color) wares, the high-firing, lime-glazed Yue celadon wares and low-fired wares from Changsha. In northern China, high-fired, translucent porcelains were made at kilns in the provinces of Henan and Hebei.

Increasing use of china clay in the South
During the Song and Yuan dynasties porcelain was made at Jingdezhen and other kiln sites in southern China using crushed and refined porcelain stone alone, but by the early eighteenth century china clay and porcelain stone were mixed in about equal proportions. China clay when added to the body material produced a porcelain of great strength and whiteness (whiteness, in particular, was a much sought after property of porcelain, especially that used for blue and white wares).

Porcelain bodies made from porcelain stone fire at a lower temperature, in the region of 1250 degrees Celsius, than those made with a mixture of china clay and porcelain stone, which require firing in the region of 1350 degrees Celsius.

The temperatures within a typical large, southern egg-shaped kiln varied greatly, from hot, near the firebox, to cooler, near to the chimney at the opposite end of the kiln. One advantage gained by the addition in varying amounts of china clay was that the composition of the paste could be altered to suit the position that the wares made from it would occupy in the kiln, with a clay-rich mix being used for wares to be fired at the hot end of the kiln and a stone-rich mix being used for wares to be fired at the cooler end of the kiln.
 

                                                                                                                   Cont'd Part 3
 

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