Microwave vs conventional porcelain firing: Greenware to biscuit crystallochemical transformations

This work reports and compares the structural crystallochemical transformations occurring during the microwave and conventional porcelain manufacture. Batches of greenware (just dried) porcelain pieces are microwave and electrically fired at increasing temperatures, from 420 °C up to 1100 °C. Crystallochemical transformations are identified by XRD analysis, and compared the results from samples microwave and conventionally fired. Microwave fired samples show the full and rapid collapse of kaolinite structure for firing temperatures just above 500 °C, whereas the collapse of kaolinite structure of the electrically fired samples is progressive, from about 500 °C up to 950 °C. Muscovite structure totally collapses at about 950 °C for microwave fired greenware samples, whereas muscovite structure total collapse only occurs at about 1050 °C for electrically fired greenware samples. Microwave and electric firing lead to appreciable differences in the sanidine – orthoclase – microcline structural transformations. Mullite formation could be identified in the microwave fired samples at temperatures 50 °C lower than in the electrically fired ones, especially for the conventional firing temperatures above 1050 °C, the same temperature reported in the literature.

De la Fábrica de Porcelana a la Escuela de Agrónomos de Madrid

Resumen: La actual Ciudad Universitaria de Madrid se sitúa sobre el que fue uno de los Reales Sitios madrileños, el de La Florida y La Moncloa. Este artículo tiene como objeto contestar a la pregunta ¿qué había antes?, centrándose en el edificio de la Real Fábrica de Porcelana, que posteriormente se convertiría en el primer edificio universitario de la zona, la Escuela de Ingenieros Agrónomos, antes de que el campus siquiera se imaginase. Se enfoca, además, el trabajo no solo desde el punto de vista histórico, sino también desde el análisis arquitectónico, y se utiliza el dibujo como instrumento metodológico para establecer hipótesis que nos permitan comprender cómo fue ese lugar y cómo se ha transformado hasta llegar al edificio que conocemos hoy día.Abstract: Madrid’s Ciudad Universitaria is located on the grounds of the ancient La Florida and La Moncloa Real State, which was one of the madrilian royal properties. This article aims to answer the question what was there before?, focusing on the building of the Royal Porcelain Manufacture. It would later become the first university building in the area –the School of Agricultural Engineers–, even before the campus was envisaged. We approach this work not only from a historical perspective, but also from the architectural analysis, using drawing as a tool to understand how this place was and how it developed towards the current building we know today.

Shaping Family Identity among Korean Migrant Potters in Japan during the Tokugawa Period

This chapter considers the management of family through analysis of manufacturing and cultural traditions among Koreans relocated to Japan during the Japanese invasions of the Korean peninsula during the period of the Imjin Wars (1592–98). In particular, it examines the monument created by Jissen, a fourth-generation son of the Fukaumi family who had come to Japan to work in ceramics during the period of the invasions. Potters were particularly desirable labourers during this period and Korean family-run operations were critical to the development of Japanese porcelain manufacture. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Jissen raised the temple monument to his great-grandparents, changing tea ceremony practices had brought Aritaware increased attention from the Japanese nobility, and then from a wider European clientele. This chapter analyses how his monument helped construct the identity of a translocated family, and gave meaning to dynasty, house and household in Tokugawa Japan.

A Preliminary Study of a Nineteenth-Century Persian Manuscript on Porcelain Manufacture in the Sipahsalar Library, Tehran

The Risāla dar tafṣīl-i sākhtan-i chīnī (A Treatise on Porcelain Manufacture) is a Qajar-period manuscript in Persian, housed at the Sipahsalar Library in Tehran. It is the only known source that details the modern technology of porcelain production in the Qajar era (1789–1925). According to the information in the colophon, the scribe, Masih ibn Muhammad Baqir al-Firuzabadi, completed the manuscript in the year 1284 (1868). The text mentions that it is the translation of a French work, but no further reference to the original book is given. The purpose of this essay is to introduce and review the Persian manuscript, to reveal its relation to the three-volume Traité des arts céramiques ou des poteries (Treatise on Ceramic Arts or Potteries) by Alexandre Brongniart, a nineteenth-century scientist and director of the Sèvres Porcelain Factory, and to underline its importance to the history of art and technology in Qajar Iran.