Decorative 3-Tier Porcelain Column Table with serpentine glass shelves. The columns are richly decorated with Romantic Colorful Scenes, genre of people, and floral motiff. H:28 1/4" W:13" D:12 1/4" This is a Decorative Colorful Table with high relief in the figues, the history of porcelain is quite interesting and it's influence. There are three main kinds of porcelain: (1) hard-paste porcelain, (2) soft-paste porcelain, and (3) bone china. The differences between these types of porcelain are based on the material from which they are made. This material is called the body or paste. Hard-paste porcelain, which is sometimes called true porcelain or natural porcelain, has always been the model and ideal of porcelain makers. It is the type of porcelain first developed by the Chinese from kaolin and petuntse. Hard-paste porcelain resists melting far better than other kinds of porcelain. For this reason, it can be fired at higher temperatures. These hot temperatures cause the body and the glaze to become one. When hard-paste porcelain is broken, it is impossible to distinguish the body from the glaze. A piece of porcelain is shaped on a potter's wheel or in a mold. After this stage, the porcelain worker may decorate it by (1) surface modifications, (2) painting, or (3) transfer printing. Soft-paste porcelain, sometimes called artificial porcelain, was developed in Europe in an attempt to imitate Chinese hard-paste porcelain. Experimenters used a wide variety of materials in their efforts to produce a substance that was hard, white, and translucent. They eventually developed soft-paste porcelain by using mixtures of fine clay and glasslike substances. These materials melt at the high temperatures used in making hard-paste porcelain. For this reason, soft-paste porcelain is fired at lower temperatures and does not completely vitrify--that is, it remains somewhat porous. Breaking a piece of soft-paste porcelain reveals a grainy body covered with a glassy layer of glaze. Bone china is basically made by adding bone ash (burned animal bones) to kaolin and petuntse. English porcelain makers discovered this combination of ingredients about 1750, and England still produces nearly all the world's bone china. Though not as hard as true porcelain, bone china is more durable than soft-paste porcelain. The bone ash greatly increases the translucence of the porcelain. A piece of porcelain is shaped on a potter's wheel or in a mold. After this stage, the porcelain worker may decorate it by (1) surface modifications, (2) painting, or (3) transfer printing. Surface modifications are achieved by incising (carving), perforating (poking holes), and embossing (applying raised designs). A well-known method of embossing porcelain is to apply a mixture of water and clay, called slip, to the item with a brush. Relief designs (three-dimensional effects) are usually molded separately and then attached to the porcelain. By the 1700's, porcelain manufactured in many parts of Europe was starting to compete with Chinese porcelain. France, Germany, Italy, and England became the major centers for European porcelain production. Although most 18th English porcelain was soft paste, some hard paste porcelain was being made by the late 1760s and could be found on late 18th century sites. Hard paste porcelain was manufactured on the Continent, for example at the Meissen factory in France, from the early 1700s, but little was imported into the colonies until the end of the 18th century or early 19th century

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