456 ART INDUSTRY AND RELATED OCCUPATIONS. 



ductions of this class. Chinese jasper-ware and open-work flint- 

 ware are said to come from the province of Shantung. The 

 Moritz House in The Hague, and Leyden, have particularly fine 

 specimens of it. 



Porcelain stands at the head, as the noblest member of the 

 numerous family of ceramics. To it belong all the dense, hard, trans- 

 parent and resonant white clay-wares with or without glaze. Wher- 

 ever glazing is employed, it is always transparent and very closely 

 united with the porcelain, from which it differs only in its easier 

 fusibility. The porcelain itself is usually made of the purest 

 material and baked, after careful preparation, with a high degree 

 of heat. In spite of the properties already mentioned, the defini- 

 tion of porcelain is much more difficult than might at first sight 

 appear. For the differences in the elements and the composition 

 by which it is conditioned, are so great, that on the one side, it 

 approaches milk glass, on the other the stone-ware designated as 

 mock-China, and the white flint-ware also so named. Unglazed 

 porcelain is called biscuit or statue porcelain. The glazed porce- 

 lain is distinguished as hard and soft. The hard genuine stone 

 porcelain cannot be scratched with a knife, has a clear sound, and 

 sometimes shows sparks when struck with steel. Felspar or fel- 

 spathic rock, together with kaolin is always used in its paste, 

 which is burned in a very great heat (from 3000° to 4500° C). 

 Hard porcelain excels all other clay-wares in value for household 

 use and that of the chemical laboratory, but it is not so good for 

 decorative purposes as the soft porcelain and Delft-ware, offering 

 many difficulties to polychromatic ornamentation. 



The soft or fritted porcelain has a lead glazing, which may be 

 scratched with the knife, produced by lead oxide with the addition 

 of the flux. The paste which is prepared from Tertiary clay and 

 Kaolin^ flint receives an addition of plaster of Paris, or bone ashes 

 for a flux. Soft porcelain, whether it resembles Delft-w^are like 

 the English, or, like French porcelain, more nearly approaches 

 glass in its constituents and properties, melts at the temperature 

 required for baking the common hard variety. The latter is there- 

 fore chiefly manufactured and used, and is always meant when 

 porcelain is spoken of without distinction. We shall learn, how- 

 ever, that it has many grades, and that the Japanese particularly 

 exhibits many peculiarities, as will be seen from a description of 

 its manufacture. For a better understanding of the subject some 

 historical facts will now be given. 



The Japanese, like other nations, began in pre-historic times to 

 form earthenware with but inferior tools and material, and only 

 gradually reached a higher degree of artistic ability. When and 

 where common earth was formed by the hand into coarse pots 

 and other vessels, and burned like bricks by inappropriate method 



^ For the beautiful Seger-porcelain of modern times, no Kaolin is used, 

 but Mikroklin from Ytterby, and fat, brown- coal claj. 



