Excerpt from Hard Paste Porcelain (Oriental): China, Japan, Siam, Korea
The earlier porcelains of the Ming dynasty, which extended from 1368 to 1643 of the Christian era, were more vigorous and barbaric in form and coloring, and heavier and coarser in paste than those of the present dynasty, from 1644 to the present time, which latter, in respect to tranalucency, fineness and thinness of paste, and exquisite color, reached their highest perfection in the last third of the seventeenth century and through the eighteenth, a period represented by the K 'ang-hsi and following two or three reigns.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the exquisite products of the Chinese potters influenced the ceramic art of the entire civilized world and we find that the pottery and porcelain of Europe made at that time strongly reveal the Oriental methods in the forms of vessels and their decorative treatment. The Delft of Holland and England; the stanniferous, or tin-enameled faience of France, Sweden, Germany and other Continental countries; the maiolica of Spain and Mexico; the frit paste porcelain of France, of Chelsea, Derby, Bow and Worcester, in England, and the hard paste porcelains of Germany and France, all reveal a marked attempt to imitate the porcelain of the Celestial Empire. At first these efforts resulted only in a superficial resemblance, but soon after the beginning of the eighteenth century, through the discoveries of Bottger, of Dresden, and other investigators, true hard porcelain bodies and glazes were perfected, which in composition and appearance closely simulated the Chinese wares.
