Lee Love on fri 10 feb 06
Porcelain was created in America before it was in Europe. This is from
Louise Corts article in The Log Book, here article on the history of
woodfiring in America:
"The use of high-temperature clays from the interior mountains began
with the first European potter to set up shop in the new colony of
Georgia, around 1738. He experimented with porcelain, using the local
Georgia kaolin that is still a mainstay of American studio potters.
Although his use of kaolin predated that in Europe, it did not develop
into a commercially successful product."
Wedgewood later had large amount of this kaolin imported to make their work.
Corts article also says that folks think the Carolina Alkaline glaze was
derived from Chinese celadon recipes that were in the journals of the
French Jesuit priest, Pere d'Entrecoles, that was published in England
in the 1730s. Did a Google and found him at Ceramics Today:
The Letters of Pere d'Entrecolles
Being the first detailed accounts on the manufacture of Chinese
porcelain to reach the Occident.
P?re Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles lived from 1664 to 1741. He was a
Jesuit missionary who traveled to China in 1698, where he studied some
of the secrets of porcelain manufacture. His letters, written in 1712
and 1722 were amongst the first accounts available in the West on
Chinese porcelain and helped to fuel the European craze for porcelain
and the search for the 'Arcanum', or the ‘secret’ formula for porcelain.
According to some sources, d'Entrecolles inadvertently mixed up the
names of the clays, probably swapping the proportions of kaolin and
petuntse - surely a minor error!
Unknown to d'Entrecolles, B?ttger had already unraveled the secret of
porcelain manufacture, leading to the establishment of the Meissen
Porcelain Manufactory in 1710.
If you go here, you can read his actual letters (haven't read them yet,
but they look interesting!):
http://www.ceramicstoday.com/articles/entrecolles.htm
--
Lee Love
in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
http://seisokuro.blogspot.com/ My Photo Logs
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
--Leonardo da Vinci
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