Dakin Building, Brisbane, California using porcelain panels

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Porcelain

Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating selected and refined materials to high temperatures. These materials often include clay in the form of kaolinite. more...

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According to the Combined Nomenclature of the European Communities, porcelain is "completely vitrified, hard, impermeable (even before glazing), white or artificially coloured, translucent (except when of considerable thickness) and resonant." Raw materials for porcelain, when mixed with water, form a plastic paste that can be worked to a required shape before firing in a kiln at temperatures between about 1200 and 1400 degrees Celsius. The toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain arise mainly from the formation at high temperatures of glass and the mineral mullite.

Porcelain was named after its resemblance to the white, shiny Venus-shell, called in old Italian porcella. The curved shape of the upper surface of the Venus-shell resembles the curve of a pig's back. (Latin porcella, a little pig, a pig)

Properties associated with porcelain include low permeability, high strength, hardness, glassiness, durability, whiteness, translucence, resonance, brittleness, high resistance to the passage of electricity, chemical attack, and thermal shock, and high elasticity.

Porcelain is used to make table, kitchen, sanitary, and decorative wares, objects of fine art, and tile. Its high resistance to the passage of electricity makes porcelain an excellent insulating material. It is also used in dentistry to make false teeth, caps, and crowns.

Scope, materials and methods

Scope

Porcelain has many uses but this article is concerned mainly with its employment as a material used to make objects of craft and fine art, including decorative and utilitarian household wares. This follows the Wikipedia policy of drawing a line between technology and the arts, though in the case of porcelain the line is a difficult one to draw. Industrial and other uses are not covered here. Another difficult line to draw is that which divides high-fired stoneware from porcelain. Where this line is drawn depends upon how the terms porcelain and stoneware are defined. In this article the term porcelain is taken to encompass a broad range of high-fired ceramic wares, including some that might according to some systems of classification fall into the category of stoneware.

Materials

Further information: Pottery

The material used to form the body of porcelain wares is often referred to as clay, even though clay minerals might account for only a small proportion of its whole. The porcelain clay body, unfired or fired, is sometimes spoken of as the paste and porcelain clay is itself sometimes described as the body (for example, when buying materials a potter might order such an amount of porcelain body from a vendor).