Collection: Antique Porcelain

What to Look For When Buying

Start with the body rather than the mark. Hard paste porcelain, fired at high temperature, is dense, cold to the touch, and chips with a glassy, conchoidal edge. Soft paste is warmer and more granular, and its glaze sits on the surface with a softer, sometimes pooled appearance. Held to a strong light, most porcelain is translucent to some degree, and the character of that translucency, along with any firing flaws visible within the body, is far harder to fake than a painted mark on the base. Glaze should be examined for crazing, pooling and pinholes, and for the small imperfections of period production, which are evidence rather than defects.

Marks should be read last and with scepticism. The crossed swords, the anchor, the crown and the interlaced Ls have all been applied to pieces that have nothing to do with the factories that used them, sometimes contemporaneously and sometimes a century later. A mark is useful when it agrees with the body, the glaze, the palette, the gilding and the form, and it is worth very little when it does not. Decoration is a further question, because plain or lightly decorated period pieces have long been redecorated later to increase their appeal, which typically shows as enamel sitting on top of crazing rather than beneath it.

Restoration is common and increasingly hard to see. Run a fingertip along rims, handles, spouts and any projecting element, feeling for a change in temperature or texture, since restored areas are usually slightly warmer and less hard than glazed porcelain. Restoration often appears as a matte or slightly different reflection under raking light, and tapping the piece gently will produce a dull note rather than a clear ring where a body is cracked or repaired. Longwave ultraviolet light will reveal most modern restoration as a distinct fluorescence. We assess pieces for these things before listing and document condition and known restoration honestly.

Caring for Your Piece

Handle porcelain with both hands supporting the base and the body, never by the handle, spout, finial or rim, which is where almost all breakage happens. Remove rings before handling, and use a padded surface when setting pieces down. Undamaged, unrestored porcelain can be washed by hand in lukewarm water with a little mild detergent, dried immediately and thoroughly with a soft cloth. Restored pieces should never be immersed, as water penetrates the repair and lifts it, and should be dusted or lightly wiped instead. Never put antique porcelain in a dishwasher and never expose it to sudden temperature change.

Gilded and enamelled decoration is on the surface and will abrade, so avoid rubbing decorated areas and never use an abrasive cleaner or scouring pad. Do not use antique porcelain in a microwave or oven regardless of its original purpose. Display pieces where they cannot be knocked, use plate stands with padded contact points rather than wire hangers that place pressure on the rim, and avoid stacking. Keep pieces out of prolonged direct sunlight, which fades overglaze enamels. Any repair should be carried out by a ceramics conservator, and it is worth asking for a written record of what was done and with which materials, since that record becomes part of the object's history.

Factories Worth Knowing

Meissen was the first European factory to produce true hard paste porcelain and remains the most widely copied. Sèvres established the French tradition of ground colours and elaborate gilding that shaped taste across the continent. In England, Worcester, Derby, Chelsea and Bow developed distinctive soft paste bodies through the eighteenth century, and their marks are among the most frequently reproduced. Nineteenth century English factories including Minton, Coalport, Royal Crown Derby and Royal Worcester produced work of exceptional technical quality that remains widely collected, and later Royal Doulton and Wedgwood output sits at the accessible end of a serious collecting field.