The soft porcelain, or pâte tendre, can be made without the admixture of the clay called by the Chinese kaolin. It has the quality of translucency, but lacks hardness and strength. It melts at a lower heat, and, while very delicate and beautiful, it is not so enduring as the pâte dure. Experts can distinguish the two at sight; but there are some signs which will help the uninitiated. The soft porcelain is likely to be more creamy, and softer to the eye and touch, than the hard; the painting blends more into the glaze; the bottoms of the pieces or the rims are covered with the glaze; while, in the hard porcelain, these rims, from standing on the sanded floor of the furnaces, show no glaze. The painting on the hard porcelain is likely to be sharper, and more on the surface, than that on the soft, into which it seems to melt.
St.-Cloud.—Before the discovery of kaolin in Europe, as early as 1695, soft porcelain, or pâte tendre, was made at St.-Cloud in great variety and of considerable excellence; and the story of French porcelain, begun there, may be divided into two parts: 1. Soft porcelain, begun at St.-Cloud in 1695, continued there, and afterward at Chantilly; then at Vincennes, in 1745; still later at Sèvres, in 1756. The production of soft porcelain, or pâte tendre, continued at Sèvres, in company with that of the pâte dure, until 1804. 2. The hard porcelain, or pâte dure of the French; which was made after the discovery of the kaolin of St.-Yrieix, at Sèvres.
Marks used at St.-Cloud:
The mark of the Sun. Another one.