Porcelain Porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between . The toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainly from vitrification and the formation of the mineral mullite within the body at these high temperatures. Though definitions vary, porcelain can be divided into three main categories: hard-paste, soft-paste and bone china. The category that an object belongs to depends on the composition of the paste used to make the body of the porcelain object and the firing conditions. Porcelain slowly evolved in China
Saint-Cloud porcelain Saint-Cloud porcelain Saint-Cloud porcelain was a type of soft-paste porcelain produced in the French town of Saint-Cloud from the late 17th to the mid 18th century. In 1702, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans gave letters-patent to the family of Pierre Chicaneau, who were said to have been making porcelain as "perfect as the Chinese" since 1693. Chicaneau's factory was a pioneer in the manufacture of porcelain in Europe, where there had been many attempts to copy Chinese porcelain. Saint-Cloud developed a frit ("a mixture of a flux, sand and chalk") which was close, although not similar, to Asian porcelain. The