Dragon Pillar Snuff Bottles

[richy88]

Hi John

Another beauty indeed.

It is almost identical to the one I have, except that mine does not have any crackle.

Thanks for posting.


Richard

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Richard,

    That is because your example is in hard-paste porcelain,
and John's is in soft-paste porcelain...

   Hard-paste porcelain is produced by combining Kaolin ['China'] clay with Petuntse,
a naturally occurring calcium carbonate compound. The Chinese discovered it in the late Tang Dynasty [!].
Incidentally, it took the Europeans till the 18th C. to replicate it, by burning cow bones to recreate that calcium carbonate compound.
Only 800 years later...

Soft-paste porcelain is produced by mixing Kaolin clay with 'frit' - a glassy substance that is a mixture of white sand,
gypsum, soda, salt, alum and nitre. Lime and chalk are used to fuse the white clay and the frit.
And the mixture then fires at a lower temperature than hard-paste porcelain.

Best,
Joey

[Wattana]

Another fine example - 2003 was a bonanza year for you!

Tom