History of Porcelain - The beginnings

The early beginnings in East Asia and Europe

In every century the people love porcelain because it is beautiful and precious. The invention of porcelain is a triumph of creativity.

Without doubt there was a connection of the invention of porcelain and between the early glaced stoneware in China.

Seladon (produced in the Sung-Dynasty 960-1279) was an early stoneware with a light green glaze. For that stoneware was already Kaolin a porcelain soil used.
In the 12th century the main factories of the porcelain production in China were situated in the territory Kiangsi. The first production of real porcelain is estimated between 1280-1367. With the beginning of the Ming Dynasty it was produced at a very high quality. The cobalt and iron-red under-glace painted porcelain came to Europe in the 13th century.

One of the first Europeans who made it well known in Europe was the Italian Marco Polo. From the 16th century on porcelain has been become a very attractiv good for the import industry.
Enormous sums of money were spent to decorate the different castles in Europe with that rare good. But the transport from Asia to Europe was lengthy and dangerous. That was a reason why some companies tried to imitate the production of porcelain in Europe. First experiments started in Spain and Italy but brought not the final breakthrough and not the real white porcelain.