Factories for making hard-paste porcelain, or true, porcelain began to appear in Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The first was established by Augustus II, the “Strong”, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and a patron of art. Soon other plants were built in Italy, England, France, and other parts of Europe. Meissen Porcelain Works was one of the factories and its fame quickly spread throughout Europe.
Unlike what many believe, the primary purpose of establishing porcelain factories was economic, not artistic. Experiments in European laboratories had produced only the so-called soft-paste porcelain, which is harder to restore because it is more fragile than hard-paste porcelain — many porcelain repair and restoration experts have difficulty bonding the pieces and matching glaze on soft-paste porcelain items. Soft-paste porcelain lacked two of the essential ingredients of hard-paste porcelain discovered by the Chinese centuries before (china repair is essentially hard-paste porcelain repair): the infusible fine white clay, commonly known as kaolin, or “China Clay”; and an element called “petuntse” by the Chinese, which would fuse the other ingredients when they were heated to a high temperature and give translucency to the paste.
Read our entire article about Meissen Porcelain Repair at Ezine Articles…
Please note that it always costs more to have a porcelain restoration expert restore something that had been previously glued or repaired.
DO NOT REPAIR OR RESTORE ANYTHING TOO VALUABLE OR ANCIENT. Find a ceramic and porcelain professional restorer and let him or her do the job for you.
Luel Restoration Studio
www.luelstudio.com
luba@luelstudio.com
646-251-5593
References are available upon request.
