page_title: Porcelain
section_title: Types
hierarchical_section_title: Porcelain / Types
caption_attribution_description: English: The flowering branch of Prunus is painted in Famille Rose overglaze enamel. This magnificent dish belongs to a set made for use in the palace.
context_page_description: Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating materials, generally including a material like kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. The toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainly from vitrification and the formation of the mineral mullite within the body at these high temperatures. Though definitions vary, porcelain can be divided into three main categories: hard-paste, soft-paste and bone china. The category that an object belongs to depends on the composition of the paste used to make the body of the porcelain object and the firing conditions.
  Porcelain slowly evolved in China and was finally achieved at some point about 2,000 to 1,200 years ago, then slowly spread to other East Asian countries, and finally Europe and the rest of the world. Its manufacturing process is more demanding than that for earthenware and stoneware, the two other main types of pottery, and it has usually been regarded as the most prestigious type of pottery for its delicacy, strength, and its white colour.
caption: Chinese Imperial Dish with Flowering Prunus, Famille Rose overglaze enamel, between 1723 and 1735
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