Soft-paste porcelain its soft-paste and hard-paste varieties is fraught with misconceptions", and various categories based on the analysis of the ingredients have been proposed instead. Some writers have proposed a "catch-all" category of "hybrid" porcelain, to include bone china and various "variant" bodies made at various times. At least in the past, some sources dealing with modern industrial chemistry and pottery production have made a completely different distinction between "hard porcelain" and "soft porcelain", by which all forms of pottery porcelain, including East Asian wares, are "soft porcelain". Chinese porcelain, which arrived in Europe before the 14th century, was much admired and
Chinese export porcelain the Dutch called "klapmuts". The blue pigment used by the artist has faded badly since the picture was painted. Under the Kangxi Emperor's reign (1662–1722) the Chinese porcelain industry at Jingdezhen was reorganised and the export trade soon flourished again. Chinese export porcelain from the late 17th century included Blue and white and "Famille verte" wares (and occasionally "Famille noire" and "Famille jaune"). Wares included garnitures of vases, dishes, teawares, ewers, and other useful wares along with figurines, animals and birds. Blanc de Chine porcelains and Yixing stonewares arriving in Europe and gave inspiration to many European potters. For the