Group of 6 Armchairs 18th...
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Porcelain and its origin
P
orcelain belongs to the family of ceramics, ie those products formed of earth, forged by hand or mechanically and subsequently cooked.
In terms of elegance, beauty and delicacy, porcelain is unrivaled.
Porcelain belongs to the family of ceramics, we discover the origin of this precious material nicknamed even white gold.
To date probably each of us possesses at least one object in this splendid material, be it an old tea set from the aunt, a statuette of dubious taste or, who is more fortunate, a beautiful finely decorated vase.
However, not everyone knows that up until a few centuries ago in Europe porcelain was a luxury item, reserved for the most influential rulers and the richest families.
H
ow do you explain the very high prestige enjoyed by this good, even nicknamed "white gold"?
Reference is made to porcelain for the first time in writing in "Il Milione" by Marco Polo. During his travels in China the Venetian merchant found himself faced with a large quantity of objects in this very white material, delicate, almost translucent but at the same time resistant and hard.
Marco Polo in his writings refers to it with the name "porcelain", a term that was used at that time to indicate a type of mother-of-pearl shell. He probably gave it this name by virtue of the similarity between the two elements. In China this particular tableware had been in use for centuries, at least since 600 AD In the West, by contrast, nothing like it had ever been seen.
With the intensification of trade with the Far East, porcelain, along with other "exotic" novelties, such as spices or silk, became a luxury item, a real object of desire. Especially since this material was in no way replicable in Europe (despite the countless attempts). The Chinese have in fact kept the process of obtaining porcelain very secret for generations, a secret revealed in Europe only in the 18th century, or more or less five centuries after the famous mention in "Il Milione".
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A
lchemists, arcanists, scholars of all kinds were striving on the question of porcelain, losing countless amounts of money and incalculable time.
Often it was kings who subsidized these incoherent research, hoping to find ways to imitate their much-loved Chinese porcelain. Each attempt was in vain and nothing more than the soft-paste porcelain, technically imperfect, was obtained.
Meanwhile, legends about this material spread, now surrounded by a mystical aura. In fact, it seemed that porcelain had magical powers, which it protected against diseases and poisons.
A background of truth, as in every legend, there was: in fact the density of the porcelain dough does not allow the nesting of bacteria, moreover it seems that, in contact with some toxic alkaline substances, the porcelain alters, revealing the presence of poison.
F
inally, at the end of 1707 Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and Johann Friedrich Böttger, supported by the elector Prince of Saxony Frederick Augustus, discovered the secret ingredient for making hard porcelain the same as Chinese: kaolin.
In Meissen, the place of discovery, a factory immediately opened, where the arcanists were in effect prisoners. It was feared that the secret proceedings could spread, ending Meissen's monopoly.
After a few years, the inevitable happened: two dissatisfied arcanists fled to Vienna, bringing them the porcelain formula. From this moment on, manufacturing began to proliferate in Europe; by now the secret was in the public domain.
In the next article we will review the most important European manufacturers and brands to recognize them.
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