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
Saint-Cloud porcelain Arita porcelain, Japan, known as "Fleurs indiennes" ("Flowers of the Indies") was also used as an inspiration. In its later years, Saint-Cloud also produced various designs which were less Asian in character, especially with some white soft-paste porcelain wares. After 1752, Vincennes porcelain was handed a monopoly of polychrome decors, which reduced the scope of other manufactories to some degree. Production continued until 1766, when competition from the Chantilly and Vincennes porcelain manufactories put Saint-Cloud out of business. 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