Definition:Porcelain

Porcelain is a dense, white, translucent ceramic ware produced by firing a refined clay body — typically kaolin-based — at high temperatures (above 1,260°C). The high firing temperature vitrifies the clay body, making it glass-like in structure: harder, less porous, and often translucent when thin. Hard-paste porcelain, the original Chinese formula independently discovered in Europe by Meissen around 1708, is used by most major Continental makers — Meissen, Royal Copenhagen, Rosenthal, Hutschenreuther, Lladro. Soft-paste porcelain, an earlier European approximation using ground glass and white clay, was used by some English makers before hard-paste became available. The vast majority of collector-grade European and British dog figurines — Royal Doulton, Beswick, Dahl Jensen, Goebel — are porcelain. The term is sometimes loosely applied to any fine white ceramic; technically it refers specifically to the vitrified, translucent body.