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The world owes the creation of porcelain to the ancient Chinese, who discovered this material more than three thousand years ago. After his invention, he reigned exclusively in the world. Those few things that got to Europe were made only in China. The inhabitants of China kept the production recipe and components in the strictest confidence. It was forbidden to divulge to foreigners the secret of manufacture under pain of death.
History
Since 1004 The city became the center of porcelain production in China. Jingdezhen(also called Dingzhou) located on the shore of the lake Poyang, where they produced products for the imperial court. Back to top 18th century about a million people lived in it, and three thousand porcelain kilns worked. Porcelain products from this city were of high quality. Chinese porcelain flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries when the craftsmanship of its manufacture has reached perfection.
In the 17th and 18th centuries a large amount of Chinese porcelain came to Europe. It was taken out by Dutch and Portuguese seafarers and merchants. Rare for medieval Europe, sailors acquired goods when they sailed from the harbor of Arita in the province of Hizen. In this harbor, porcelain was called "imari".
Features of the composition and production of Chinese porcelain
Porcelain is translated from Farsi as "imperial". Only the rulers and members of the imperial family could afford dishes from it. To prevent the secrets of making porcelain from falling into the wrong hands, the city of Jingdezhen, in which the main production was located, was closed in the evening, and armed detachments of soldiers patrolled the streets. Only those who knew a special password could get into it at that time.
Why was porcelain so revered and why was it so valued by Europeans? For thinness, whiteness, melody and even transparency. The quality of products depended on the content of white clay in the porcelain mass. It was mined not everywhere, but only in some provinces of China.
It was this component that gave whiteness to finished porcelain products. Also, the quality was influenced by the degree of fineness of grinding the “porcelain stone” powder (a rock made of quartz and mica), from which the mass was kneaded. This breed was mined in the province Jiangxi.
The mixed porcelain mass was aged for about 10 years before being used. It was believed that in this way she acquired greater plasticity. After such a long exposure, it was also beaten off. Without this, it was impossible to sculpt from the mass, it simply crumbled in the hands of the master.
Ancient Chinese potters fired porcelain products in special ceramic pots-capsules at a temperature of 1280 degrees (products from ordinary clay, for comparison, were fired at a temperature of 500 - 1150 degrees). The kiln was loaded to the very top with finished products, walled up, leaving a single small opening to observe the process.
The stoves were heated with wood, and the firebox was at the bottom. They opened the oven only on the third day and waited until the pots with products cooled down. On the fourth day, workers entered the kiln to carry out the finished fired porcelain. But even then, the furnace had not yet completely cooled down, so the workers were in wet clothes and gloves made of several layers of wet cotton wool. For the manufacture of only one piece of porcelain, the efforts of 80 people were required.
Glaze applied to finished porcelain products in several layers, varying the degree of transparency of each layer. This was done to give the dishes a special matte sheen. Cobalt and hematite were used as paints, which tolerate high temperatures during firing. The Chinese began to use the finish with enamel paints only in 17th century.
As a rule, the ancient masters used thematic plots and complex ornaments in painting, so several people painted one product. Some outlined the contours, others painted landscapes, others - the figures of people.
The first Chinese porcelain cups were white with a slight greenish tinge. When tapped, they made a melodic ringing, reminiscent of the sound “tse-ni-i”. That is why porcelain in ancient China was called "tseny".
Europeans learned about porcelain through the mediation of merchants. Most of all, they were struck not even by the quality of porcelain products, but by cup making technology. They were just unique. Chinese craftsmen glued a porcelain cup from two halves - outer and inner, while their bottoms and upper rims were firmly connected. Inside the cup was painted with floral ornaments, and the openwork outer half remained white. When tea was poured into it, the finest painting of a smaller cup was visible through the porcelain lace.
But the most surprising thing for Europeans was grayish porcelain vessels with patterns showing through on the walls. As the cup filled with tea, sea waves, algae, and fish appeared on it. 
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The value and quality of porcelain is determined by several components: material, shape, decor and glazing. The color of the finished porcelain product should be warm, soft, creamy.
About 1700 prevailed in painting green color, therefore, products dated from this time belong to the so-called "green family". At a later time, painting began to dominate and pink color. This is how porcelain appeared, which belongs to "pink family".
Some stages in the history of production Chinese porcelain and the products in which they were made bear the name of the imperial dynasty that ruled at that time.
In 1500 The technology of making porcelain from the Chinese is adopted by the Japanese. The quality of the first Japanese porcelain was much lower than the Chinese one, but the painting was more luxurious. It was distinguished by a wide variety of plots and ornaments, the brightness of colors and real gilding.
Chinese porcelain attracts with its unique properties: high strength, sonority, wide color palette of materials and semi-precious stones, which have long been common in China.
Chinese porcelain history is very unusual and peculiar. Archaeological excavations carried out recently in China have not been able to answer the question related to the date of the appearance of porcelain. However, Chinese sources attribute the manufacture of porcelain to the Han era, covering 204 BC - 222 AD.
Reliable historical evidence of the period of the appearance of porcelain are products and porcelain shards discovered during excavations in the ruins of the city of Samarra in Mesopotamia, formed in the 9th century. Thus, the manufacture of porcelain can be attributed to the Tang period.
During the reign of the Tang dynasty from 618 to 907, there was an intensive development of trade, especially in southern China. The first trading colonies appeared in Canton, where foreign merchants arrived: Arabs, Persians, Jews, Greeks, which indicates the development of maritime trade.
The growth of industrial and economic development, the improvement of public administration, were the impetus for the intensive development of Chinese culture and art, literature and science.
Naturally, these transformations could not but affect the development of the handicraft industry. One of the highest achievements of the handicraft industry was the development of ceramics, with a unique technology for processing porcelain shards.
Ceramic porcelain products of that era directly left their mark on the handicrafts of Chinese culture, which, in the course of its development, came into contact with the culture of other countries. For example, with India, Greece and many other countries.
You can find vessels with an unusual shape, similar in shape to the neck and handles with a Greek amphora or other foreign and foreign samples.
It should also be noted that on porcelain ceramic products of the Tang time period, the use of bronze products is observed both in the forms and in the decoration of products. Among the frequently used decoration elements were golden semi-balloons or winding rims.
Glazing of porcelain products also has a rich background. In ancient China, lead glazing was popular. With a varied range of colors: green, turquoise, amber-yellow and purple-brown, which were obtained from the same metal oxides that were taken as the basis for creating identical later types of Minsk glazes.
Subsequently, feldspars appeared, for which higher temperature conditions were needed.. The main types of spar types of glaze were: white, green, brownish-gray, purple-black, chocolate brown. Their specific features are unusual brightness. Multi-colored circles, applied to the surface at a close distance from each other, were a specific element of Chinese porcelain products.
Decoration techniques such as engravings, extraordinary and refined sinuous patterns, repeatedly observed on ceramics of the Tang historical period, were used not only in the subsequent Sung period, but are also successfully used in modern Chinese porcelain production.
Porcelain was once revered as a handicraft miracle, and daredevils paid with their lives for the secret of this ceramic material. Then they began to reinvent it here and there - as a result of which the world was enriched with new varieties and varieties of porcelain. Over time, all the physical properties of porcelain were in demand, and in the last century, porcelain products were divided into industrial and household.
Where did it all begin?
History of porcelain
China is the birthplace of porcelain. While the Europeans - even the most civilized, the ancient Greeks - were sculpting amphoras, gouging stone bowls and trying to cast glassware, the Chinese were working intently on the creation of porcelain. The first successful experiments of Chinese masters are documented in 220 BC.The Chinese themselves tend to increase the age of porcelain by at least a thousand years. European science believes that not all ancient Chinese ceramics are porcelain, but only those that, with a light impact, ring “jing-n” ... And such products began to appear in China only in the middle of the first millennium of the New Era.
Do not be lenient with the auditory evaluation criterion. There is an opinion that both the English-language name of China, and the Slavic "xin", and the Chinese name for porcelain come from the same source - the onomatopoeic "jin".
In any case, the geographical area of the appearance of Chinese porcelain is called Jiangxi to this day; British China is an anglicized attempt to read the ancient Chinese tien-tse, which was later transformed into tseane and served as the name, among other things, for any piece of porcelain.
According to some linguists, the Russian "blue" is still the same tracing paper from the Chinese tseane. After all, the first products made of Chinese porcelain were decorated exclusively with blue mineral paint. Does this mean that the Slavs got acquainted with Chinese porcelain thousands of years ago? An interesting but unsupported hypothesis.
Why was porcelain born in China?
Strictly speaking, the pace of development of ceramic craft in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, India and other areas remote from China were approximately equal. And the Chinese did not introduce anything fundamentally new into the technology of molded clay firing. The same domed stoves, the same charcoal...The secret of the origin of porcelain lies in raw material preferences. Masters all over the world preferred to take oily red clay for making ceramics. The Chinese were lucky enough to operate with a substance, although refractory, but beautiful, especially after intense, with the melting of the outer layer, firing.
It was not easy to achieve success in creating an efficient porcelain technology. Therefore, the Chinese, who were very willing to trade in porcelain, strongly opposed the disclosure of their know how.
Louder than jade, whiter than snow
The first examples of Chinese porcelain consist of mashed kaolin and ground kaolin. The best porcelain, according to the ancient poets, was "bell like jade, shining like frost, white like snow".According to the precepts of the first masters, in order to achieve the proper quality of products, well-moistened porcelain dough was sent for a century of exposure to deep pits. The dissociative decomposition of minerals in an alkaline medium ensured both plasticity and homogeneity of the resulting material.
A visual analysis of Chinese porcelain shards could not tell the then Europeans either the composition or the features of the product technology. A more or less successful imitation of porcelain was glass welded with a large addition of tin oxide, as well as several variants of a mixture of tin (called opal) glass with clay.
But the similarity was only superficial: the consumer qualities of counterfeit porcelain products remained low. And the cost of milky white glass with antimony and tin exceeded the price of Chinese porcelain ...
Spies went to China.
Persians are the keepers of the porcelain secret
Attempts of porcelain espionage, undertaken at the end of the first - beginning of the second millennium of our era, were unsuccessful. From which the interested Europeans hastily deduced the opinion about the severity of the old Chinese regime of secrecy, and composed tales about the demonstrative executions of captured intelligence officers.In fact, the Chinese were very friendly towards foreigners, and even merchants were welcomed as relatives. But China's porcelain exports of those times belonged entirely to people from Persia and (to a lesser extent) India. Buying porcelain products cheaply, Eastern merchants sold them at a multiple mark-up. It is not for nothing that Li Shang-Yin, the famous poet of the 9th century, writes: “It is strange to see a poor Persian ...”
So there is nothing surprising in the fact that travelers on foot and on horseback, heading to China for porcelain, disappeared without a trace long before reaching their goal. The Arab-Persian trading mafia did not let them through! It was not in vain that navigators searched for a waterway to the East so stubbornly that they even discovered America...
The Polo Family - European Ambassadors to China
The visit of the Venetian merchant Niccolo Polo to China fell on the difficult period of the Mongol conquests, but was surprisingly successful. The son of Niccolo Polo, Marco, lived in China for seventeen years, after which, showered with gifts from the khan, he returned to Venice.Western experts in the history of porcelain argue that truly high-quality Chinese porcelain was born simultaneously with the arrival of Marco Polo in Beijing. And all porcelain products of the previous period, that is, created before the middle of the XIII century, are of little value in technological and artistic terms.
Among the foreign gifts brought by Marco Polo from China, porcelain cups turned out to be especially interesting. One of them was covered on the outside with the finest porcelain mesh. The other was attracted by a colorful pattern that appeared after filling the vessel with hot water. The third was translucent with the most delicate shade of pink - for which the tongued Italians called the material "piggy" - porcellana.
The name stuck. In vain did the famous traveler tell the legend about the addition of the blood of Chinese virgins to porcelain dough. His countrymen excused themselves with the similarity of pinkish porcelain with shells of a mollusk, which is just the same and is called "pig".
And by the way, the Venetians tugged at the traveler, what, besides virgin blood, is part of the Chinese porcelany?
Persistent porcelain secret
We do not know what Marco Pola answered the questions of fellow citizens. And what could he say? In China, porcelain is made by thousands of artisans: they take white clay in Kaoliang, grind the porcelain stone, mix it, age it ... then they mold it and fire it. Everything!But what is Kaoliang's white clay? What is porcelain stone? And most importantly, why does not one of the white clays of local occurrence give the desired effect?
There was no answer.
Centuries have passed. At the end of the 17th century, a French priest, Father Francois Xavier d'Entrecol, arrived in China. The monk arrived well prepared not only for missionary work, but also for intelligence work. He spoke Chinese and held permission to visit Jin-te-zhen, a district that produces porcelain in abundance both for the imperial court and for sale.
They say that the crafty monk had to experience miracles of spy luck in order to obtain and send samples of porcelain raw materials to his homeland, France. True, René Réaumur, the famous physicist and final addressee of the d'Antrecol letters, did not find anything useful in the monastic correspondence. Neither Kaolian clay nor the mysterious porcelain stone seemed to exist in France...
The decline of the Chinese porcelain monopoly
However, the advanced science of the middle of the 18th century was already burning with the idea of French porcelain. Pierre Joseph Macer led the theoretical research of the porcelain composition formula. Jean Darcet painstakingly studied samples of domestic clays until he found a material near Limoges that met all the requirements. The fat Limoges kaolinite was quite consistent with the white Kaolian clay.The solution to the mystery of the so-called "porcelain stone" took place even earlier. At the beginning of the century, the Germans Ehrenfried Tschirnhaus and Johann Bötger established that equal amounts of and should be added to clay to make thin, fine-grained and low-porous ceramics.
True, the first of the materials created by German scientists does not quite correspond to the Chinese standard. However, by a happy coincidence, reserves of excellent china clay were discovered in the vicinity of Meissen, and therefore Bötger and Tschirnhaus soon managed to achieve real success.
In the second half of the 18th century, white porcelain of excellent quality began to be produced in France, and in many other places in Europe. Does it happen in human history that priority is not disputed?
English, Japanese, Russian porcelain
When, in 1735, d'Entrecol's work on porcelain was published, the book was also read in England. Thomas Briand was appointed agent and sent to France, where he succeeded in mastering the porcelain trade. Shortly after Briand's return to England, it turned out that the porcelain patents were already ready and production could begin.Technologies borrowed from France, and with them the Florentine (late 16th century) methods for making porcelain mass, allowed the British to create real masterpieces. The special merit of England is the invention of bone china.
Japanese porcelain saw the light before European, but came to Europe only occasionally. Japanese craftsmen improved the Chinese methods of decorating products in their own way, and at the time of the production of the first French porcelain, the masters were tasked with copying Japanese samples in high quality.
The history of Russian porcelain officially begins in the 18th century. However, according to some historians, Gzhel white clay began to be used for the production of porcelain as early as pre-Mongolian times.
According to unverified information, on the territory of the current Ramensky district of the Moscow region, shortly before the Mongol-Tatar invasion, craftsmen who completely copied Chinese technologies worked. Some art historians believe that the modern Gzhel tradition of painting porcelain in blue on white grows out of medieval Chinese antiquity...
But why did the 18th century become the time of the rapid and widespread spread of porcelain?
The first European porcelain comes from Dresden!
Johann Friedrich Bötger felt like an alchemist from a young age. Having mastered the technique of gilding silver coins, Bötger went to the elector of Saxony Augustus and assured the ruler of his alchemical power. Not surprisingly, Bötger, appointed the state's chief gold miner, was soon sentenced to death for embezzlement and failure to fulfill obligations.To the credit of the king, he did not insist on the beheading of the violent Bötger's little head, and instructed the indefatigable experimenter to create, well, at least something, for example, porcelain loved by the elector. Oddly enough, the secret of thin, sonorous and translucent ceramics succumbed to the young alchemist.
In 1709, the novice researcher compiled the original recipe for Meissen porcelain. August highly appreciated the find, pardoned Bötger and rewarded the creators of the porcelain miracle, and in addition, he founded a manufacturing factory and took precautions against divulging the secret.
Meissen porcelain emblem pretty soon steel crossed swords- as a reminder of the responsibility for encroachments on the secret. Bötger, who was dismissive of the "pot" business, received the strictest instructions. In this connection, he made one of his assistants the keeper of the secret of porcelain proper, and entrusted another student with saving the secret of the glaze.
The elector, however, did not particularly believe in Bötger's silence and, according to rumors, poisoned the poor fellow. But it was too late... Bötger's friend Christoph Hunger, trained in gold appliqués on porcelain, escaped from Saxony and began to travel around Europe and sell the secrets of Meissen porcelain. The inns of Dresden were filled with adventurers eager to find out the great porcelain secret.
Queues of suitors lined up for the daughters of porcelain masters - but the marriages lasted only until the sons-in-law entered the family business. Having learned the secrets and somehow mastered the porcelain know-how, unprincipled spies hastily left German wives and fled towards fame and fortune.
Receiving information feed from several sources, porcelain manufactories grew all over Europe like mushrooms after rain. As a result, by the beginning of the 19th century, every self-respecting ruler could boast of his own porcelain!
Porcelain in terms of science
It is customary to distinguish between two types of porcelain: soft and hard. The difference between the types is determined by the composition. Soft porcelain contains a greater number of so-called fluxes - components that have a relatively low melting point. Hard porcelain is fired in kilns that are 300 degrees hotter. Technical porcelains, as a rule, are hard.Porcelain tableware is made mainly from soft porcelain: it transmits light better, although it is more fragile. Hard porcelain is very strong, refractory, chemically resistant - and therefore is in demand in the production of equipment, insulators, laboratory glassware, metallurgical refractories.
The composition of hard porcelain includes kaolin (50% by weight), quartz and feldspar (in equal or approximately equal shares, together up to 50% by weight). In soft porcelain, the percentage of feldspar and other flux additives is much higher than in hard porcelain, and the amount of quartz is reduced.
Composition of noble ceramics, developed in 1738 in France and largely repeating the old Chinese recipe, makes it possible to produce exactly soft porcelain. The French proposed to prepare porcelain dough from 30-50% kaolin, 25-35% silicates, 25-35% of the so-called frit - a raw composition that includes several components that give porcelain shine, ringing and light transmission.
Among others, modern frits include carbonates, calcites, fossils and... !
porcelain technology
Grinding and mixing of raw materials is the most important preparatory operation. The homogeneity of the porcelain dough particles guarantees uniform heating and the same sintering rates throughout the entire body of the product.Porcelain is fired in two or three stages. The first firing - this stage is called by specialists “for scrap” or “for linen” (“linen” refers to unpainted rough porcelain) - is carried out in order to obtain high-quality molded products with a raw surface. The second firing (“for pouring”) melts the glaze applied to the primary product over the artistic paintings.
After the second firing, finishing decoration is carried out: overglaze painting, gilding and other finishing operations. Fixing the overglaze painting usually requires a third, most gentle firing. If firing "for scrap" and "for watering" is carried out at temperatures in the range from 1200 to 1500°C, then the "decorative" third firing does not require heating above 850°C.
Porcelain products are dyed with dyes consisting of powdered metal oxides. And if the underglaze painting never comes into contact with the environment, the metals from the overglaze painting can in some cases migrate from the surface layer of the dish into the food.
Conscientious porcelain makers prevent this by mixing dyes with glassy fluxes. Unfortunately, in an effort to reduce the cost of products, some modern tableware manufacturers paint porcelain with unstable paints.
Avoid buying suspiciously cheap food china!
Instead of a conclusion
In ancient China, porcelain was called tien-tse, which means "son of the sky." Meanwhile, the “son of heaven” in China has always been titled emperor. The Persians only copied the title: baarura in ancient Persian, like farfura in Turkish, means "Chinese emperor".Thus, acquiring porcelain, our contemporary joins the greatness of the Chinese Empire and touches the material, which even the emperors - "sons of heaven" are worthy of. The pathos and aristocracy of history do not make porcelain inaccessible to the people. Everyone can collect a worthy and representative porcelain collection today.
Is it worth it to start? Of course it's worth it!
For the fact that we can now enjoy products made from such a wonderful material as porcelain, we must thank the ancient Chinese, who discovered this type of ceramics more than three thousand years ago. After its appearance, all porcelain that was used in the world was only made in China. And the masters of the Middle Kingdom themselves kept the recipe for its manufacture under the strictest confidence, for the disclosure of which the offender would inevitably be sentenced to death.
And its history began in the 2nd millennium BC. But it took another 1,500 years for the level of technological development to make it possible to move on to the production of porcelain products in mass quantities.
It was then, in the 6th-7th centuries, that the Chinese finally learned how to make porcelain, which was distinguished by its snow-white appearance and thin shard. The legend says that for a long time the craftsmen could not find the material for manufacturing that would be best suited. For example, jade scared away with its high cost, and clay and wood - with fragility and low aesthetic qualities.
The Chinese, it was, were already completely desperate, but here a happy accident came to their aid. The material was found in Jiangxi Province, they became a rock formed from quartz and mica and called porcelain stone.
Also at this time, porcelain workshops began to appear in one of the settlements of Jiangxi. As it turned out later, all this happened in Jingdezhen, which gained fame as the porcelain capital of China. Now this city located in the South-East of the Celestial Empire is one of the tourist centers. People come here specially to admire the place that became the birthplace of porcelain and the area where it developed and improved. Moreover, the locals have always made only high-quality porcelain items.
In ancient manuscripts, the whiteness of these products was compared with snow, their thinness with a paper sheet, and their strength with metal.
Once during the archaeological excavations of the settlement of Samarra (Mesopotamia region), shards of porcelain products were found, which were among the earliest that have been preserved to this day. This city appeared and was destroyed in the 9th century. And this fact proves that porcelain was invented during the reign of the Tang Dynasty.
In general, it must be said that some of the most famous Chinese inventions gained fame in this era. It was such a favorable time for the development of crafts, sciences and arts.
The years from 618 to 907 AD, when the country was ruled by the Tang dynasty, became the era of the highest power of China. It was at this time that the Celestial Empire became the most developed world state. Progressive political development, which took place against the backdrop of regular annexation of territories, became the reason for the country's rapprochement with other powers.
During this period, there is also a flourishing of trade relations in the southern part of China. The appearance in Canton (now known as Guangzhou) of foreign merchant colonies, representing most of the progressive world states, indicates that sea trade in China was carried out on a large scale. They traded with Japan through seaports, and with Asia Minor along the Great Silk Road. We describe all this only so that you understand: it was then that for the first time conditions were created for acquaintance with Chinese porcelain all over the world, with the exception of perhaps Europe.
The first products of Chinese porcelain
The earliest porcelain items were elegant elongated polished jugs.. It is also necessary to mention the blue and greenish vases with relief decor, which were especially popular and were called celadon in the countries of the Old World.
These works of art were made both in the Tang era and during the Song era that followed it. This was followed by the appearance of Bei-Ding porcelain with an extruded pattern from the city of Sezhou, thick matte glazed Zhu-Yao items, and Jin-Yao sea-green vessels from Henan Province.
In the 14th century, during the Ming era, which ruled China in the 14th-17th centuries, the unofficial status of the “Chinese porcelain capital” passes to the city of Jingdezhen, where the mass production of vessels begins, which are painted with three-color lead glazes (sancai), combined with overglaze painting (doucai).
And it must be said that it was this porcelain, produced in industrial quantities, for the first time that ended up in the hands of the Europeans. They immediately fascinated the inhabitants of the Old World with their appearance, the highest level of workmanship, a variety of shapes and decor.
In the 13th-14th centuries, the manufacture of porcelain products in the Celestial Empire experienced its real heyday, as a result of which the whole world got acquainted with porcelain. This happens not least thanks to the merchants who brought porcelain to the European continent.
In the 16th century, only porcelain from China could be bought in Europe, which was brought by land route and was called "Chinaware". This porcelain was worth fantastic money in our times, so it was treated like a jewel.
The fair sex strung pieces of porcelain on gold chains and wore them like beads. Over time, the name "Chinaware" among Europeans was replaced by the term "Porcellane" - from the mollusk "porcellana", which had a transparent, mother-of-pearl shell. These two terms are still used today.
The manufacture of porcelain in the Celestial Empire was clearly divided into export, which brought large financial revenues to the state treasury, and domestic - for the emperor and representatives of the aristocracy. And these directions practically had nothing in common with each other.
For example, according to the imperial order, 31 thousand dishes and 16 thousand plates and 18 thousand cups were produced every year. And for the European continent, elegant vases were needed, dishes and services that were spectacular in their appearance, which were hardly used in everyday life, but were always put in a prominent place, which raised the status of their owners in the eyes of others.
Features of the manufacture of Chinese porcelain
From Farsi, the word "porcelain" can be translated as "imperial". Products from it were available only to the rulers of the country and representatives of the nobility. To prevent the recipe for porcelain production from falling into the wrong hands, the city of Jingdezhen, where the production was mainly located, was closed at night, and a special armed patrol walked the streets. Only those who called the prearranged password could enter the city during these hours.
Why was porcelain so valuable and so much loved? The reason for this is its thin walls, snow-white color, transparency and it also sounds very pleasant. The high quality of porcelain containers was due to the fact that it included white clay - kaolin. Its extraction was carried out only in a few Chinese provinces.
It was thanks to the use of this element that porcelain acquired its snow-white appearance. And yet, the quality depended on how finely the “porcelain stone” powder used to knead the porcelain mass was ground. It could only be obtained in Jiangxi.
The porcelain mass obtained from it was sent to wait in the wings, which came after several decades, due to which the workpiece acquired plasticity. After that, the mass also fought back, which made it possible to make modeling out of it, otherwise it would simply begin to crumble in the hands. Then the porcelain mass was sent to the kiln, the high temperature regime of which made it possible to change its physical composition during firing, as a result of which it acquired transparency and water resistance.
Porcelain was fired in special ceramic pots at a temperature of 1280 degrees. The furnace was completely filled with future products, then it was tightly sealed, leaving only a small gap through which the craftsmen watched the procedure.
The potters of the Celestial Empire quickly learned to build such furnaces, inside which the required temperature regime was formed. The first such stoves were created in the early centuries of our era, as evidenced by archaeological finds.
Firewood was used to kindle the stoves, and the firebox itself was located below. It was possible to open the furnace only after three days, after which they waited for the products to cool. They cooled down during the day, then the craftsmen entered the oven to take out the resulting porcelain. But even after this time, it was still very hot inside the furnace, for this reason the masters put on wet clothes and gloves from a large number of layers of damp cotton.
For the production of only one container of porcelain, the forces of eight dozen people were used.
It must be said that porcelain was covered with several layers of glaze at once, and each layer had its own level of transparency. This allowed the products to acquire an enchanting matte radiance. Cobalt and hematite were used as dyes, which perfectly tolerated high temperatures during firing. Decorating with enamel paints masters of the Celestial Empire began to use only in the 17th century.
Usually, the old masters turned to thematic subjects in the paintings, and also performed various intricate patterns. Therefore, several masters were engaged in painting one porcelain container at once. Some of them drew contours, others landscapes, and the rest human figures.
The very first porcelain cups were snow-white with a barely noticeable green tint. When they touched each other, a very pleasant ringing was heard, which was heard by people nearby as “tse-ni-i”. For this reason, porcelain was then called "tseni" in the Celestial Empire.
As we have already said, Europeans who got acquainted with porcelain were delighted with it. But most of all, they were surprised not by the quality, not by the appearance, but by the production technology of products, which they met for the first time.
For example, a porcelain cup was glued together from two parts - external and internal. At the same time, its bottom and upper rim were securely connected to each other. From the inside, the product was decorated with floral patterns, and the lace outer part was white. And when tea was poured into a cup, the exquisite decoration of the inner half shone through the porcelain openwork.
But most of all, the inhabitants of the Old World admired gray porcelain products, with ornaments visible on the walls. As the cup filled with tea, sea waves, fish, sea plants appeared on it.
At the beginning of the 18th century, most porcelain containers had a green decor, for this reason, products made in these years are included in the so-called "green family".
After some time, the color of the decor will change to pink. Thus in oznik porcelain belonging to the "pink family". Also, experts highlight "yellow family". The cups included in all these listed families were distinguished by a particularly magnificent decor. All these products were produced during the reign of Emperor Kangxi (1662-1722) and his heir, grandson Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799).
This porcelain was exported in large quantities to the European continent. These containers, which were named after the predominant color, had delicate shapes, clean surfaces, which delighted the Europeans. Glazed objects made of "flaming porcelain" delighted the eye with colorful surfaces. Soon, the theme of the decoration of products sent to Europe began to change. They began to appear stories taken from Western life.
A number of stages in the history of porcelain production were named after the imperial dynasties that ruled the country at that time.
At the beginning of the 16th century, the secrets of porcelain production technology became known to Japanese masters. At first, porcelain from the Land of the Rising Sun was significantly inferior in quality to classical Chinese products. But he was famous for his luxurious decor. The plots and patterns presented on the containers were distinguished by a significant variety, bright colors and real gilding.
The history of Chinese porcelain in pictures
