Porcelain China
The Complete Online Guide

This page looks at the big picture of German Porcelain, French Porcelain, Italian Porcelain and English Porcelain.

If you want to know exactly what the difference is between porcelain and bone china check out Bone china ware

On this website you will find one of the best resources on porcelain on the internet.

Here, the aim is to give you just the right amount information for a quick but comprehensive review of porcelain china.

This site is listed by ArtQuest

Other related pages on this Website:

China manufacturers (A-Z guide to who’s who)

Antique bone china (the famous old factories)

English Bone China (a view from the inside)

Bone china manufacturers (the new generation - since 1950)

Wedgwood bone china Wedgwood (the legend).

German Porcelain

Subsequently, Böttger died penniless and young due to industrial poisoning. Yeah, thanks Augustus. Anytime! Meissen maintained its dominance until the defeat of Saxony during the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) when the composition and kiln technology for porcelain china, were leaked. Whoops!

It then became trendy to give princely patronage (if you were a prince, of course) to porcelain makers. You were nothing if you didn’t have your own porcelain china works.

Rapidly up to 30 factories flourished from c.1758 to around 1775. With the exception of Meissen, Nymphenburg, and Berlin, most factories closed when the novelty of porcelain waned at the end of the 18th century.

For more information see (China manufacturers A-Z page).

French Porcelain

Vincennes was the most significant of the makers and moved to Sèvres (SW of Paris) in 1756, coming under the control of King Louis XV who granted a monopoly to the town. Sèvres began produced hard-paste in 1769. Kaolin (the secret ingredient the Chinese had been using for millenia - appropriately called 'china clay') had been discovered at Limoges a few years earlier. Lucky for them! Quickly, Limoges was established as the place where porcelain blanks or whites were made - to be sent to Sevres for decoration & glazing 200 miles away. I hope they used lots of bubble wrap, those coaches were a bit rickety.

The late 18th century saw the end of the cartel and a number of independents began to flourish in France.

For more information see (China manufacturers A-Z page).

Italian Porcelain

Italy was the exception. Here, soft-paste porcelain had been made in Florence in the mid-16th century, and later at Capodimonte.

Hard-paste porcelain was made from the 1720s in Venice and at Doccia, near Florence (Ginori factory), in 1737, and later at Naples. (see China manufacturers page).

English Porcelain

In England it all started in 1567 when two potters arrived in England from Holland. They knew the secrets of tin glazing. Known as delftware in England tin-glazing took hold in locations as diverse as London, Bristol, and Liverpool throughout the 1600’s and 1700’s. Delftware was replaced in the 18th century by salt-glazed stoneware, and creamware when Staffordshire became the heart of pottery production. Soft-paste porcelain factories grew up in London – at Chelsea, Limehouse, St. James, Bow, and Vauxhall. Then Bristol became active followed by Derby, Longton Hall, Liverpool, and Lowestoft (see also 'English China’ page for more details).

A hard-paste was patented in William Cookworthy in 1768. Further experiments led to the invention of a whole new material known as bone china by Josiah Spode II c 1799.

Fine bone china porcelain is primarily an English product, but was adopted to some degree by both American and European makers. Famous names such as Lennox (American), Rosenthal (German) and Villeroy & Boch (French/German) all present bone china as an important part of their modern collections - see Antique bone china (the famous old factories).

Here are some really good reference sites for porcelain collectors research:-

The Gardiner Museum Website

The Zelli Porcelain Website


return from porcelain china to homepage