A brief history of Porcelain   4Porcelain appeared in China in the 7th century AD during the T’ang Dynasty. The Venetian Marco Polo, who travelled through China during the 13th century, discovered this translucent ceramic to which he gave the name of a nacreous shell know in Venetia and called “Porcellana”. 4At the end of the 15th century, the Potuguese Vasco de Gama opened the route to India .Consequently, porcelain received a great success among the ruling classes in Europe, so much so that France and Italy tried in vain to imitate this fine porcelain. What was lacking in Europe to produce true Chinese porcelain was Kaolin (a decomposition of feldspar that gives to it its white colour and translucency) and the secret of manufacturing. 4Until the end of the 17th century the o­nly means to obtain this essential material was to import it from China. 4In 1706, a Saxon nobleman commissioned Bottger, a young alchemist, to discover the carefully guarded secret of the true “hard” porcelain processing method. About in the meantime, a kaolin deposit was discovered in Saxony in Meissen - Germany. Three years later, Bottger developed a method to produce hard porcelain, safeguarding fiercely the secret of his discovery. 4Until 1765, in France and Italy, the o­nly success to imitate the Chinese porcelain was the development of a soft-paste porcelain, a various mixtures of white firing clay and glass or frit, that didn’t have the hardness and resonance of true porcelain. This year saw a great evolution in porcelain manufacturing in France, especially in Limoges. The story relates that a surgeon’s wife did her washing with a white substance as soap. Her husband wanted to commercialize her discovery and did analyses which identified her “soap” as kaolin. Thanks to the exploitation of this kaolin deposit, situated in Saint Yrieix la Perche, in the area of Limoges, the history of Limoges porcelain started. Under the protection of Turgot, the Intendant of Limoges, the first porcelain manufacture opened in 1771. The products were common and produced in very few number but since the buy out of this manufacture by the Royal Manufacture of Sèvres in 1784, forms and decorations had been more studied and sophisticated. Porcelain manufacturing - Guided Tour