Monday, March 9, 2009

Mustard yellow porcelain

The place on Powell Street has nice museum-quality mustard yellow procelains which are really lovely. I most especially like the thin-walled rice bowls with the flared lip, I could really imagine eating from them. But are they safe? It isn't very likely.......

Mustard yellow ware

Here's a good picture of a nice "recent" antique vase:
http://www.goantiques.com/detail,mustard-yellow-satsuma,318961.html

This vase isn't really a mustard yellow, more like a lemony yellow:
http://www.addisoncollection.net/ci4684.html

This is a very beautiful shallow bowl:
http://www.askasia.org/teachers/images/image.php?no=641&era=06&grade=&geo=


The enamel is lead-antimonate.

All ceramic glaze colors are oxides of metals. Lead enamel has three parts lead oxide and one part powdered quartz with a small quantity of metallic oxide. These are mixed with water and binders, then brushed onto the already fired pot.
They turn glassy when heated up to 700 to 800 centigrades in a muffle kiln (a kiln with a clean oxidizing atmosphere - the heat is directed by conduction or convection so as to prevent the fuel or the flames from contacting the objects).

So, seeing as the temperature for the overglaze is stoneware instead of porcelain hot, the glaze may leach material into foods or liquids contained within. I don't think there are any deep mustard yellows that are high temperature overglaze. Oh how I wish there were!

10 comments:

GRANT!PATEL! said...

Weirdest subject yet. No lace?

Personally, I am rather fond of the overglaze enamle category. Especially famille vert and famille rose. Though famille jaune, with that typical ekuri (scrambled egg) pattern can be jolly pleasing, if not restfull to the eye.


---Saffron Bedsheets

GRANT!PATEL! said...

Crakly porcelain ('crazed') in solid colors and delicate hues has an ancient and inspiring look to it. But one would not want to eat off of such things, as there may indeed and utterly be leakage of mineral and metalic aliments.


---Indigo Dhoti

GRANT!PATEL! said...

Imari, such as what the Japanese have done, is not so impressive. Nice, colorful, but too cute for appreciations.


---Veridian Pajamapants

The back of the hill said...

Oh good, we all have a potteryand porcelain thing going on.

I tend to collect the owrks of certain Northern California potters. Particularly please with me greens. Not only celadon, but apple-green. Plus also modern crackle ware.

The back of the hill said...

Though I do have some of the mustard yellow stuff from that merchant at Powell and Broadway that you mention. He also carries some nice tea-dust glazed vases, by the way. Very nice.

Anonymous said...

Crackely porcelain is not to be confused with Kraak Porselein. The first is the effect of glaze flexing at a different rate than the body as the temperature changes, the second is derived from Dutch - either kraak (carrack) or kraak (crack). If the latter, likely due to shifting of the ballast resulting in cracked or damaged goods. Kraak porselein was the cheap bulk crockery that ballasted the merchant vessels.

GRANT!PATEL! said...

But genuine Kraak Porselein can nowadays be quite the collectible item. Depsite significant offkilteredness, dissymmetry, or rim-warpage in firing. It is the appearance of age that makes it desirable.

That does not work for my grandmama, however. Sometimes a fossil remains just a fossil.

I am young and sproingy.


---Preston Flakeworth

The back of the hill said...

Most kraak porselein is of course underglaze blue, but not necessarily only that type. Also included in some listings of kraak are the wucai and sancai wares.
All are late Ming, early Ching, if I remember correctly.

GRANT!PATEL! said...

Some kraak has floral patterns that inspired later Mughal artists, others introduced the banana leaf motif to the Persian court painters. There is a history there.


---Grant Patel

GRANT!PATEL! said...

And of course the influence of Chinese design motifs on Mughal, Chagatai, and Ottoman painters and artistes decoratifs is much acknowledged. One cannot scope the Topkapi collections without recognizing a huge overlap and fertilization.


---Grant Patel