Soft Paste Porcelain

Soft Paste Porcelain

Soft paste porcelain originated in England and is a cheaply made copy of the hard paste China-imported porcelain of the time. Also known as “artificial” porcelain, soft paste porcelain is characterized by a dense and chalky paste with little to no visible inclusions. It has high variation and a slightly higher porosity than hard paste porcelain. It may contain black specks on the surface of the paste, but this is more commons with hard paste porcelain (Cushion and Cushion 1992). Soft paste porcelain is fired twice: once at a higher temperature to create the base “biscuit” ware (1100-1250° C), and then again at a lower temperature to for the glaze (1050-1150° C) (Ramsay and Ramsay 2008). Soft paste porcelain is fired at a lower temperature and for a shorter amount of time than hard paste porcelain. Porcelain can be identified in a variety of ways, but the most common is to shine a light through the vessel. If the light can be seen, it is most likely porcelain. This is more frequently used to identify hard paste porcelain as it is thinner with a more glass-like paste.

Cushion, J. and Mary Cushion
1992 A Collector’s History of British Porcelain. Antique Collectors’ Club, Ltd., Woodbridge, Suffolk.

Ramsay, W. R. H. and Elizabeth G. Ramsay
2008 A Case for the Production of the Earliest Commercial Hard-Paste Porcelains in the English-Speaking World by Edward Heylyn and Thomas Frye in About 1743. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 120(1):236-256.

https://apps.jefpat.maryland.gov/diagnostic/Porcelain/PorcelainWareDescriptions/SoftPastePorcelain-intro.html

Mid 1700s-1900s

Historic Ceramic

p1/ACC 133, p1/ACC 133, p1/ACC 133, p908/ACC 133, p5239/ACC 170, p5239/ACC 170, p5293/ACC 170, p304/ACC 190