In its main lines, the history of porcelain is a very simple one. Slowly developed during the Middle Ages in China, the manufacture became concentrated at one spot, at King-te-chen, and there reached its highest development early in the eighteenth century. In Europe, the repeated attempts to produce a similar ware had about the same time been crowned with complete success in Saxony; while in England and in France a ware closely resembling in aspect the Chinese, but softer and more fusible, had been accepted as an equivalent. Speaking generally, then, we can make these three statements with regard to the history of porcelain:-- 1. That the art had its origin and complete development in China. 2. That it has seldom flourished except under royal or princely patronage. 3. That porcelain, from the artistic point of view, is essentially a product of the eighteenth century, and that this statement is true in the main as regards the country of its origin, though in this latter case we must make a certain reserve in favour of the earlier wares. Our subject may seem a simple one compared with some kindred branches of the industrial arts, such, for example, as the history of glass-making, or that of cloisonné and other enamels. We come indeed at more than one time into contact with both these arts, and it is just at these points that some of our chief difficulties arise. It is in view of such questions as these, and indeed of many others equally important in the history of porcelain, that the necessity of a thorough understanding of the technical and even chemical side of our subject becomes evident. Of course, if in discussing the different kinds of porcelain we are concerned only with their merits or demerits as artistic products, we can put aside these practical questions as ‘beneath the dignity of our argument.’ But such a treatment of the subject would land us only too surely in vague generalities and in an arrangement based upon personal caprice. We require, above all at the start, a firm basis, and this can only be found in a thorough comprehension not only of the technical processes that are involved in the manufacture of porcelain, but of the physical and chemical nature of the substance itself. But first we need some kind of preliminary definition of what is meant by the word. Porcelain, then, is distinguished from other fictile wares by possessing in a pre-eminent degree the following qualities: hardness, difficult fusibility, translucency, and whiteness of body or paste. Any specimen of ceramic ware that possesses all these qualities may be classed as porcelain, and from a practical point of view, the more it excels under these heads, the better specimen of porcelain it is.