Soft paste porcelain

Description

Any of several types of artificial porcelain that contain powdered glass frit, refined clay and flux. Soft paste sinters at lower temperatures (about 1100C) than hard paste. It was originally developed in Europe in the 15th century in imitation of Chinese porcelain. One type of a soft paste porcelain is bone china.

Synonyms and Related Terms

artificial porcelain; pate tendre; soft-paste; softpaste; bone china; porceleine à pâte tendre (Fr.); porcelana de pasta macia (Port.)

Authority

• Ralph Mayer, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969 (also 1945 printing)

• Random House, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Grammercy Book, New York, 1997

• The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998

• The Dictionary of Art, Grove's Dictionaries Inc., New York, 1996 Comment: 'Ceramic'

• Robert Fournier, Illustrated Dictionary of Practical Pottery, Chilton Book Company, Radnor, PA, 1992

• Henry Hodges, Artifacts: An Introduction to Early Materials and Technology, Ronald P. Frye, Kingston, Canada, 1988

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000