ANTIQUE CERAMICS, POTTERY, CHINA AND PORCELAIN

Welcome to Antique Ceramics. This website has information on antique whiteware ceramics, which include pottery, porcelain, bone china and earthenware.

The word "ceramic" comes from the Greek word κεραμικός (keramikos), "of pottery" or "for pottery", from κέραμος (keramos), "potter's clay, tile, pottery".

The earliest ceramics were pottery objects made from clay, either by itself or mixed with other materials, hardened in fire. Later ceramics were glazed and fired to create a colored, smooth surface. Ceramics now include domestic, industrial and building products and art objects.

There is a long history of ceramic art in almost all developed cultures, and often ceramic objects are all the artistic evidence left from vanished cultures, like that of the Nok in Africa over 2,000 years ago. Cultures especially noted for fine ceramics include the Chinese, Cretan, Greek, Persian, Mayan, Japanese, and Korean cultures, as well as the modern Western cultures.

Some of the earliest ceramic objects have been found on prehistoric sites. These ceramics are often remains of prehistoric pottery.

Early pots were made by the "coiling" method, working the clay into a long string which was wound round to form a shape and then modelled to form smooth walls. The potter's wheel was probably invented in Mesopotamia by the 4th millennium BC, but spread across nearly all Eurasia and much of Africa, though it remained unknown in the New World until the arrival of Europeans. Decoration of the clay by incising and painting is found very widely, and was initially geometric, but often included figurative designs from very early on.

Ceramic tiles have also been used for centuries. The earliest evidence of glazed brick is the discovery of glazed bricks in the Elamite Temple at Chogha Zanbil, dated to the 13th century BCE. Glazed and coloured bricks were used to make low reliefs in Ancient Mesopotamia, most famously the Ishtar Gate of Babylon (ca. 575 BCE), now partly reconstructed in Berlin, with sections elsewhere. Mesopotamian craftsmen were imported for the palaces of the Persian Empire such as Persepolis. The tradition continued, and after the Islamic conquest of Persia coloured and often painted glazed bricks or tiles became an important element in Persian architecture, and from there spread to much of the Islamic world, notably the İznik pottery of Turkey under the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.

One of the latest collecting trends is that of Chinese porcelain. The Imperial porcelain of the Song Dynasty (960–1279), featuring very subtle decoration shallowly carved by knife in the clay, is regarded by many authorities as the peak of Chinese ceramics, though the large and more exuberantly painted ceramics of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) have a wider reputation.

Bone china is a type of porcelain that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material and kaolin. It has been defined as 'ware with a translucent body containing a minimum of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phosphate. Developed by English potter Josiah Spode, bone china is known for its high levels of whiteness and translucency, and very high mechanical strength and chip resistance.

Earthenware is a common ceramic material, which is used extensively for pottery tableware and decorative objects. Although body formulations vary between countries and even between individual makers, a generic composition is 25% ball clay, 28% kaolin, 32% quartz, and 15% feldspar. Earthenware is one of the oldest materials used in pottery. While red earthenware made from red clays is very familiar and recognizable, white and buff colored earthenware clays are also commercially available and commonly used.