How it began
According to Phoenix Art Museum, porcelain was invented in China through a long, slow process over centuries that began about 2,000 years ago. By around the 8th century the whiteness and translucency seen today had been achieved. By the 13th century, production of the finest porcelain occurred in a single city, now Jingdezhen in southern China, where natural deposits of kaolin were plentiful.
How it works
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating clay in a kiln to extremely high temperatures, around 1,200 to 1,400 degrees Celsius. Kaolin, or kaolinite, is the primary ingredient, along with varying amounts of materials such as feldspar, quartz and petuntse. The most coveted type is blue and white ware, which has a pure white clay body painted with floral and abstract designs in shades of cobalt blue, a pigment likely imported from regions west of China.
How it spread
Chinese makers began exporting these wares to the Islamic world, where they were highly prized. By the 13th century Chinese porcelain was being exported to the rest of Asia, and by the 16th century it reached Europe by ship. Britannica notes that during the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644) factories in China were created to supply pierced porcelain and other wares because of increased trade between Europe and East Asia.
Who pushed back
European potters could not match the material for a long time. Portuguese traders returned from China with samples of kaolin to attempt to produce such wares themselves, but they lacked the techniques and the combination of ingredients needed for fine porcelain. Only in the 18th century did ceramic artists in Europe manage to make it. Meissen porcelain in Germany, begun in 1710, was the first true porcelain produced in Europe.
What lasted
The arrival of Chinese porcelain significantly affected European ceramic production, especially at Meissen, whose wares dominated European porcelain styles until about 1756. In China, production stayed concentrated at Jingdezhen, the city that had become the center of the finest wares by the 13th century, and porcelain is still made there today.
