How does one define a ceramic and a porcelain?
When one looks at, say, a ming bowl. It is called a Ming porcelain?
OTH, when one looks at a Ming Vase, is it called a Ming ceramic?
What's the difference?

Anyway, I need some feedback on the following possiblilty. Can anyone
help?

I have 2 pieces of blue-white 'Ming'. One is a vase. But unlike most
cylindrical vases of chinese ware, this one is flat on both sides like
a thick yellow-pages, freckled white surface with a dragon (with 5
claws on each foot) chasing the pearl on each side. Size of 3" thk,
with a vertical height of 13" shrinking to a waist of 4" width from
the base at 3" high. It feature 5 sprout openings on the top in line
with each other with the centre sprout slighty higher then the others.
At the bottom are 4 chinese character depicting Yong Le Period
(Emperor Yong Le reign AD.1403 - 1424). I've searched some books on
Ming and but have never found anything close to such a design. There
is also no indication of the 'Sumali' cobalt pigment. From what I
gathered, Ming ware with the Yong Le characters are very rare. By the
look of it's artistry quality, uneven-thickness slight-whitish
glazing, it wouldn't make it to fit the imperial palace. OTH, some
books mentioned about export wares done during this period and this
fits quite accurately to their descriptions except for the
non-cylinder design. From what they wrote, these export wares usually
have an Islamic influence.

In fact, the only place to be round are the openings of the sprouts.
Something like:

o o o o o
| |_| |_| |_| |_| |
/ \
| clouds |
| |
| dragon here |
| |
| clouds | Main features
| |
(blue=ring)
/ \
/___clouds__\


Another piece I have is a tea-pot of similar art design (dragon
chasing pearl on each side). Again, with the same 4 Yong Le characters
on underside. Again with a very non-conforming Ming shape. It's a
circular shape pot with a hole right through the centre. Imagine it as
a 6" standing doughnut with a handle on one side and the mouth at the
other with the dragon circling round the doughnut. The clouds are
painted like a 6 petal lotus leaves with a hole in the middle of each.

Given the 'age' appearence, they are probably not a recent fired
piece. If it's a fake, it will probably still be fired from the later
Ming/Qing dynasty. Anyway why would anyone replicate a Ming export
ware of much lesser value when they can imitate an imperial ware and
sell for obscene $$$? How fake can this be? I bought these off a flea
market dealer and they are quite dirty with a soothe like layer inside
out. Should I clean it away?

Any help will be appreciated.

-Glen-

Hi Glen,

An on complete reply is:

Porcelain are ceramic materials. Ceramics are inorganic, non-metallic compounds processed at high temperatures. They do not necessarily contain any clay

Porcelain is completely vitrified, hard and impermeable ceramic which before firing was compounding from a formulation which contain some clay. Although generally accepted to be white and translucent coloured abd opaque porcelain are made

Hope that is of interest,

Chris

The following information from Wikipedia might help:

The most widely-known test, the thermoluminescence test (TL-test) can be used to provide an estimate, within very wide limits, of the date of last firing. The test is carried out on small samples of porcelain drilled or cut from the body of a piece, which can be risky and disfiguring. For this reason the test is rarely used for dating finely-potted, high-fired ceramics. Other tests can be used to determine the composition of glazes and body materials, for comparison with the results of analyses carried out on reference specimens of known provenance. It is however widely held that at best, testing can only be of use when combined with other, more traditional, methods for helping to establish provenance. Such methods might including comparative techniques, expert opinion and the evaluation of written and verbal records, where these are available.

Where is the best place to go for a thermoluminescence test?