谁知道关于中国瓷器的英语介绍
CHina's china
Second only to tea, perhaps the most important contribution China made to European life was "china" itself ?the hard translucent glazed pottery the Chinese had invented under the Tang dynasty and which we also know as porcelain. China had long since exported porcelain over the Silk Route to Persia and Turkey and fine examples of pre-1500 china are still in everyday use there. (An English diplomat collected almost five tons (!) of Ming pieces while serving in Iran in 1875.) In Europe before the dawn of the China trade, the highest achievement of the potter's art was a kind of earthenware which was fired, then coated with an opaque glaze and fired again, fixing the colors with which it had been painted. This was generally named for its supposed place of origin and was known as majolica in Italy, faience in France, Delft in the Low Countries, and so forth. No earthenware could stand up to boiling water without dissolving and nowhere in Europe was it understood how to heat a kiln to the fourteen hundred degrees or so required to vitrify clay and make it impervious to liquids, boiling or not. Even so wise a man as Sir Francis Bacon could only view porcelain as a kind of plaster which, after a long lapse of time buried in the earth, "congealed and glazed itself into that fine substance." Other writers speculated it was made from lobster shell or eggs pounded into dust.
Porcelain in time became the only Chinese import to rival tea in popularity. The wealthy collected it on a grand scale and even middle class people became so carried away that Daniel Defoe could complain of china "on every chimney-piece, to the tops of ceilings, tit it became a grievance." Such abundance half the world away from its place of manufacture was due to its use as ships' ballast. The China trade came to rest on two water-sensitive, high-value commodities: silk and tea. These had to be carried in the middle of the ship to prevent water damage, but to trim the ship and make her sail properly, about half the cargo's weight (not volume) was needed below the waterline in the bilges. Very roughly, a quarter of all tea imported had to be matched by ballast and from the ships' records available, it appears that about a quarter of all ballast was porcelain. Over the course of the 1700s England probably imported twenty-four thousand tons of porcelain while a roughly equal amount would have been imported into Europe and the American colonies.
To keep up with this demand, Jingdezhen, China's main porcelain-making center since the Song dynasty, as early as 1712 needed to keep three thousand kilns fired day and night. The prices fell to ridiculously low levels-seven pounds seven shillings in 1730 for a tea service for 200 people, each piece ornamented with the crest of the ambassador who ordered itteapots, five thousand of them in 1732, imported at under twopence each. Even if we multiply these prices by one hundred to approximate today's, it is incredibly cheap cost for porcelain of this quality. Before European-made wares came into general use around 1800, the English and European middle classes enjoyed their tea and meals from the finest quality chinaware ever used by any but very wealthy people, a quality of life for which the tea trade was directly responsible.
For years before the advent of tea it had been the dream of all European potters to produce china themselves. Britain's Elers brothers mastered stoneware, but their efforts to reproduce china proved unavailing, and so did the efforts of all the other first-rate potters in Europe. The potters of St. Cloud in France developed a substitute now known as soft-paste porcelain, but nobody came near approximating the real thing until an apothecary's apprentice named Johann - Friederich Bottger bumbled onto the scene.
When he was nineteen, Bottger met the mysterious alchemist Lascaris in Berlin and received a present of some two ounces of transmutation powder from him. If you refuse to believe in alchemists and transmutation, you may as well assume that Mr. Lascaris stepped out of a UFO for the stories of his-and Bottger's-careers are entirely too well documented to dismiss. As Lascarls no doubt intended, Bottger's couldn't resist showing off the powder's powers. Unfortunately, he also claimed to have made it himself with the predictable result that he soon had all the crowned heads of Germany in his pursuit. He finally reached safety, so he thought, in Dresden, under the protection of August 11, "the Strong," Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. But with extravagant gifts and riotous living, his stock of powder was exhausted rather sooner than later and his "protector" proved not to be the disinterested well-wisher he had seemed. Poor Bottger found himself confined in the castle of Konigstein where he was given a laboratory for his researches and a clear understanding of the fate reserved for him should he fall.
He finally convinced his jailer, a certain Count Tschirnhaus, that he was not an Adept in the spagyric arts but merely a demonstrator. The count proposed that in that case he should put the laboratory to use in quest of the secret of making china, since next to gold and power, collecting Japanese and Chinese porcelains was Augustus's ruling passion. (He had filled a palace with his collection-some twenty thousand pieces and still growing-by the time of his death.) Fortunately for the prisoner-researcher, Saxony abounds with the two main ingredients for the manufacture of porcelain-china clay or kaolin and the so-called china stone, a type of rock made up mostly of silica and alumina that serves as a flux and gives the ware Its translucency. Bottger first produced stoneware and then, after numerous false starts, finally obtained a hard-paste red porcelain in 1703. The kiln had been kept burning for five days and five nights and in anticipation of success his royal patron had been invited to see it opened. It Is reported that the first product Bottger took out and presented to Augustus was a fine red teapot. The long-sought secret had been discovered at last and after a few more years Bottger managed to come up with genuine hard-paste white porcelain.
Completely restored to favor, the young man admitted he had never possessed the secret of transmutationhe was formally forgiven and promptly appointed director of Europe's first china factory. It was established near Dresden in a little village called Meissen and proved to be worth almost as much to Augustus as the Philosopher's Stone would have been. Soon after full production got underway in 1713, the export market for Meissen figurines alone ran into the millions. In a letter of 1746, Horace Walpole grumbled about the new fashion in table decoration at the banquets of the English nobility: "Jellies, biscuits, sugar, plums, and cream have long since given way to harlequins, gondoliers, Turks, Chinese, and shepherdesses of Saxon China." Teapots and teacups were also produced in ever increasing quantities.
Industrial espionage spread the secret of porcelain manufacture beyond the Germanies during the 1740s, and in 1751 fifteen English entrepreneurs Joined together to found the Worchester Royal Porcelain Works. To the chagrin of every prince and duke in France lavishing patronage on a little porcelain works of his own, the King's beloved Madame De Pompadour decided to bestow hers on a little factory located near Versailles at Sevres. Louis XV bought it to please her in 1759 and, just to make sure it would prosper, ordered the royal chinaware made there. When in need of money the king sometimes forced the courtiers at Versailles to buy quantities of Sevres at extortionate prices.
The English porcelain firms of the eighteenth century kept experimenting with the formulae filched from the Continent and it would be interesting indeed to know how Mr. J. Spode first hit upon the idea of using the ingredient that distinguishes English from all other porcelains-the ashes of burned bones. Yes, Virginia, bone china is rightly so-called. And from the beginning, the mainstay of the production at Worchester, Chelsea, Spode, Limoges, and all the other centers of china making in Europe was the tea equipage.
Chinese ceramic ware is an artform that has been developing since the dynastic periods. China is richly endowed with the raw materials needed for making ceramics. The first types of ceramics were made about 11,000 years ago, during the Palaeolithic era. Chinese Ceramics range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated porcelain wares made for the imperial court.
Terminology and categories
A qingbai porcelain vase, bowl, and model of a granary with transparent blue-toned glaze, from the period of the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD).Porcelain "it is a collective term comprising all ceramic ware that is white and translucent, no matter what ingredients are used to make it or to what use it is put."The Chinese tradition recognizes two primary categories of ceramics, high-fired[clarification needed] [cí 瓷] and low-fired[clarification needed] [táo 陶]. The oldest Chinese dictionaries define porcelain [cí 瓷] as "fine, compact pottery" [táo 陶]. Chinese ceramic wares can also classified as being either northern or southern. Present-day China comprises two separate and geologically different land masses, brought together by the action of continental drift and forming a junction that lies between the Yellow river and the Yangtze river. The contrasting geology of the north and south led to differences in the raw materials available for making ceramics.
Materials
Chinese porcelain is mainly made by a combination of the following materials:
Kaolin - composed largely of the clay mineral kaolinite.
Pottery stone - are decomposed micaceous or feldspar rocks, historically also known as petunse.
Feldspar
Quartz
Technical Developments
In the context of Chinese ceramics the term porcelain lacks a universally accepted definition. This in turn has led to confusion about when the first Chinese porcelain was made. Claims have been made for the late Eastern Han period (100 to 200 AD), the Three Kingdoms period (220 to 280 AD), the Six Dynasties period (220 to 589 AD), and the Tang Dynasty (618 to 906 AD）
没有再简单的了,凑合着用吧。。。。
陶瓷最初的称呼是“Chinaware”，直译：中国瓦。陶瓷产品，古称瓦器（古时凡以土烧制成的陶土器皿，皆可称“瓦”）。China放在ware之前，可知China初无瓷器一义；后来省略ware，小写其字头，简称瓷器为china；获得瓷器之义，已经是晚清的事了。
“China”一词的出现，不晚于辽金宋、不早于先秦；大致出现在隋唐时期。学界基本认定其作为瓷器的双关含义远远晚于“China”作为中国的本意，所以China最初的意思就是指中国。
扩展资料：
瓷器初入欧洲，法国人用当时社会流行的小说《牧羊女爱丝坦莱》中的男主人公赛拉同（Celadon）来称呼青瓷。法王路易十四命令首相马扎兰创办中国公司，到广东订造标有法国甲胄纹章的瓷器，凡尔赛宫内列有专室收藏中国陶瓷。
而十七世纪的英国人直接用“中国货”（Chinaware）指称来自中国的瓷器。英国女王玛丽二世也醉心华瓷，在宫内专门设置许多玻璃橱以陈列各式瓷器。于是英国社会以华瓷装饰和日用的风气便流行起来，瓷器渐成客厅和内室必不可少的陈设。
另据《英汉词海TheEnglish-ChineseWord-OceanDictionary》（王同亿主编译，国防工业出版社，1987年）China词条介绍，China做为瓷器的涵义，是源于波斯语chini（中国的或中国人），由于受到China表示中国这种表示法的影响，产生了元音音变，由chini变为china，成为瓷器的专有名词。
参考资料来源：百度百科-china
瓷器的英语用china、porcelain、ceramic表示都行，其主要区别有：
china
c要小写（大写则翻译为中国），可翻译为：瓷器；瓷餐具；杯、盘、碟等的总称；主要是非工业类(比如说日用瓷)。
任何地方生产的瓷器都可以叫china。陶瓷最初的称呼是“Chinaware”，后来随着中国瓷器在英国及欧洲大陆的广泛传播，省略ware；china成为瓷器的代名词，使得“中国”与“瓷器”成为密不可分的双关语。
porcelain
英 ['pɔːs(ə)lɪn]，美 [ˈpɔrsələn]；作名词翻译为： 瓷；瓷器；作形容词翻译为：瓷制的；精美的。
侧重于工艺品类陶瓷作品，也是较为常用的"瓷器"的总称。是经过高分处理，质量比较好，高级工艺类教多用。
ceramic
较次，不一定经过高温处理，范围也比较广，一般是学术性的"陶瓷术"、"硅酸盐材料"，可以指艺术陶瓷，建筑陶瓷。
拓展资料：
瓷器是由瓷石、高岭土、石英石、莫来石等烧制而成，外表施有玻璃质釉或彩绘的物器。瓷器的成形要通过在窑内经过高温（约1280℃-1400℃）烧制，瓷器表面的釉色会因为温度的不同从而发生各种化学变化，是中华文明展示的瑰宝。
参考资料：china_百度百科
CiZao kiln product variety, the shape of diversity. The breed with life daily utensils for bulk, in addition to display device, building materials, etc. Life in the vessel is bowl, plate, lamp, disc, basin, bowls, wash, cans, cylinder, urn, pot, bottle, lamp, dishes, lamp, ZhiHu, water injection, army, must hold pillow etc, porcelain, Display device are furnace, sweet fume, vase, flowerpot, animals, plants and animals YanDi fractal model (such as lions, tigers, tortoise, toad, peach, etc), and other like such a piggy bank, waist, can artifacts, Building decoration materials, etc. Among them, huang painted iron army, the market, the decorative plate is green glair for export products, dragon urn is the most local characteristics.
The CiZao kiln chinaware TaiZhi general grayish, particle TaiZhi thicker, dense enough. Also because of this, the porcelain clay glair place more womb a yellowish-white makeup. But generally only half glaze, was in no glaze. Glaze can be classified into five categories, namely green glair, sauce black glaze, huang, green and yellow green glair glaze. Green glair in bowls, disc, lamp, port, basin, caddy, pot, ZhiHu, army, lamp, holding furnace, sweet fume, etc in green glair coloradd brown under Many in the dark glaze sauce bowl, the lamp, lamp, cans, pot, ZhiHu, water injection, furnace waist, such as, some of the light side or bowl, the mouth ShiQing glaze, along the sauce black glazed, Yellow green glair is in bottles, cans, army, hold, water injection, basin, plate, furnace, pillow, birds and animals eat model, Some for the yellow color glaze, green glair, green glair is much "silver" return, Some are yellow and green glair with n a device. Adornment gimmick, picking flowers, there MoYin, DiaoLou, glazing and coloured drawing or pattern, etc. Decoration pattern has flowers (Ephraim, chrysanthemum, peony flowers, tangle, flowers, etc.), the grass (grass), the melon leng, melons, chicken, and stroke, YunLei, string equipment.the grain, the cloud, water color and spread point, especially in the dragon grain.
In the jinjiang county annals "have" China township, take a focal porcelain kiln, and the earth open BoZi, cylinder, the size of the urn what genera, and give the foot." The records. Based on the field investigation and CiZao kiln relevant archaeological data, in Japan and the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Kenya, south east Asia, southeast Asia etc. Nation in the east and have CiZao kiln products. In these countries, some of the museum, the museum collections often works, thus the kiln, CiZao kiln is an important area of export porcelain.
The army, bottle, ZhiHu, cans, disc is a song period of the main export products. Among them, the army is dedicated to people in southeast Asia and the religious activities, "Dragon" production since Ming dynastiy urn, follow, but also continuously domestic exports to southeast Asia. During the Ming and qing dynasties, CiZao to burn a daily ceramics, thick, with overseas Chinese still marketing of going abroad, porcelain making technology also spread throughout southeast, promote the development of local ceramic technology, such as the Philippines meters of land "neville" fires, CiZao WuXing overseas Chinese porcelain is taught. Until recently, still have many overseas Chinese in this camp, imparting ones.
CiZao kiln is China's southeastern coast, with the important export ceramic kilns, is a strong kiln of local characteristics and style of the kilns. Its location - near quanzhou harbor port, make its export condition is superior. At the same time, it is closely related to the rise in quanzhou port quanzhou in song and yuan dynasties, when the traffic and foreign trade reached its peak, is the development of CiZao kiln production period of prosperity. Some of the CiZao kiln product is specially designed for export and fire, such as army as may be to adapt to the southeast Asia and religious life of furnace burn CiZao artifacts, the products implement class colorful, although is extensive, but it should be pointed out that special features, CiZao kiln unearthed some porcelain sculpture, deep eye high nose figure, vividly reflected quanzhou sea port of song and yuan dynasties "rise in birth million."
But CiZao ceramic in Ming dynasty, because when the glazed products mainly of extinction, cylinder, pot, cans, disc, production and sale of demand, narrow. How to position yourself? ChongZou ancestors certainly not, then the path of people are turning to architectural ceramics. In 1979, CiZao WuJinShi people, through many thousands of practice in the ancient kiln burned modern glazed pottery. Since the start CiZao on real significance of ceramic enterprise, the development of extraordinary scale.
After more than ten years of development, CiZao town as the five big building ceramic production base, become one of national xinghuo regional ceramic materials pillar industrial technology innovation, national ceramics industry in fujian province, the demonstration base of science and technology, and has ShiFanZhen ceramic group, advanced kiln production line 15 more than 300. Output value over 100 million yuan of enterprise group has 6, the value of the enterprise has super million, the building materials CiZao 159 products sold throughout the country, the exterior wall tiles yield an equivalent to two thirds of the production. Almost the glazed tiles. CiZao town by an unknown technocrat rural town has become MinDongNa economic hub. For many years in fujian province and comprehensive economic strength strong town. June 2000, Chinese sanitary ceramics association awarded "China ceramic town" honorary title.
磁灶境内古窑址多沿溪分布，数量众多，早在二十世纪五十年代，故宫博物院陈万里，冯先铭等先生就对磁灶窑进行过调查；其后，厦门大学人类博物馆、泉州海外交通史博物馆、福建省博物馆、晋江县博物馆等单位的研究人员均对其进行了大量的调查工作，并进行过局部试掘，采集到大量标本，发现了南朝至清代的二十六处窑址。其中南朝窑址1处；唐、五代窑址6处；宋元时期窑址12处；清代窑址7处。宋元时期的蜘蛛山窑址、童子山窑址、土尾庵窑址、大坪山窑址统称为磁灶窑址，列为福建省第一批省级文物单位。南朝溪口山窑址、宋代金交椅山窑址列为晋江市级文物保护单位.
磁灶窑产品品种繁多，器形多样。其品种以生活日用器皿为大宗，此外还有陈设器、建筑材料等。生活日用器皿中有碗、盘、盏、碟、盆、钵、洗、罐、缸、瓮、壶、瓶、灯、盂、盏托、执壶、水注、军持、急须、瓷枕等；陈设器则有炉，香熏、花瓶、花盆、动物形砚滴、动植物模型（如狮、虎、龟、蟾蜍、寿桃、力士像等），以及其它如腰鼓、扑满、鸟食罐等器物；建筑材料有装饰板等。其中，黄釉铁绘花纹大盘、军持、青釉碟是专供外销的产品，龙瓮是最具地方特色的。
磁灶窑瓷器的胎质一般呈灰色，颗粒较粗，胎质不够致密。也正因为此，瓷器胎土施釉处多上一层黄白色化妆土。但一般仅施半釉，器内无釉。釉可分为五大类，即青釉、酱黑釉、黄釉、绿釉与黄绿釉。青釉多见于碗、碟、盏、钵、盆、小罐、壶、执壶、军持、灯、炉、香熏等器物，有的还在青釉下添加褐彩；酱黑釉多施于碗、盏、盏托、罐、壶、执壶、水注、炉、腰鼓等器物，有的如碗、盏里侧或口沿施青釉，外施酱黑釉；黄绿釉则见于瓶、壶、罐、军持、水注、盆、盘、炉、枕、鸟食罐及动植物模型等；有的为单色的黄釉、绿釉，绿釉器多有“返银”现象；有的则黄、绿釉同施一器。装饰手法有刻划、剔花、模印、雕镂、施釉及彩绘等。装饰纹样有花卉（莲、菊、牡丹、缠枝花、折枝花等）、草叶（卷草）、瓜棱、瓜、凤，以及篦划、云雷、弦纹、卷云、水波及点彩、文字等，其中尤以龙纹最具特色。
在《晋江县志》中就有“瓷器出瓷灶乡，取地土开窑，烧大小钵子、缸、瓮之属，甚饶足，并过洋。”的记载。通过对磁灶窑的实地调查和有关考古资料证实，历年来日本、菲律宾、印度尼西亚、马来西亚、新加坡、泰国、斯里兰卡、肯尼亚等东亚、东南亚、南亚和东非国家中多有磁灶窑产品出土。在这些国家的一些博物馆、美术馆，常收藏有该窑作品，由此，证明磁灶窑是一处重要的外销陶瓷产地。
军持、瓶、执壶、罐、碟等是宋元时期大量外销的主要产品。其中，军持是专门适应东南亚人民进行宗教活动需要而烧制的；“龙瓮”的生产自宋明至今，沿袭不断，除了内销外还输出到东南亚各国。明清时期，磁灶以烧制单一的日用粗陶为主，仍运销海外，随着华侨的大批出国，制瓷技术也传播南洋各地，促进当地陶瓷工艺的发展，例如菲律宾米岸烧制的“文奈”瓷器，就是磁灶吴姓华侨传授的。直到近代，仍有众多华侨在海外操营此业，传授技艺。
磁灶窑是我国东南沿海地区，以烧造外销陶瓷为主的重要窑口，是具有浓量的地方特色和时代风格的民窑。它所处的地理位置---濒临泉州港口岸，使其外销条件优越。同时，它与泉州港的兴衰密切相关，当泉州在宋元时期对外交通和贸易达到鼎盛的时候，也正是磁灶窑生产发展昌盛的时期。磁灶窑的某些产品是专门为外销而烧造的，如军持等可能是为适应东南亚各地宗教性生活而接受的定烧器物，磁灶窑的产品器类丰富多彩，虽然比较粗放但却颇具特色，特别应指出的，磁灶窑出土的一些瓷雕塑，深目高鼻的人物形象，生动地反映了泉州港宋元时期“涨海声中万国商”的景象。
但磁灶的陶瓷在明清之后，由于宋时釉彩等工艺的的失传，产品主要以缸、壶、罐、碟为主，生产和销路窄小，市场需求低。如何定位自己？重走祖辈们的老路肯定不行，于是人们把目光投向了建筑陶瓷。1979年，磁灶人吴金世，历经多次的实践终于在千百年的古窑里烧出了现代的釉面砖。磁灶从此开始了真正意义上的跨越，建陶企业得到了超常规模的发展。
经过十几年艰苦的发展,磁灶镇作为全国5大建筑陶瓷生产基地之一，成为国家级星火区域性陶瓷建材支柱产业区、国家级技术创新陶瓷工业示范基地、福建省第三批科技示范镇，目前，拥有建陶集团15家，先进辊道窑生产线300多条。产值超亿元的企业集团有6家，产值超千万元的企业有159家，磁灶的建材产品畅销全国各地，外墙砖产量一项就相当于全国产量的三分之二。琉璃瓦几乎垄断全国的市场。磁灶镇由原来名不见经传的乡村小镇一跃成为闽东南经济重镇。连续多年综合经济实力位居福建省10强乡镇前列。2000年6月，被中国建筑卫生陶瓷协会授予“中国陶瓷重镇”荣誉称号。
中国瓷器指的是中国制造的瓷器，在英文中“瓷器（china）”与中国（China）同为一词。中国是瓷器的故乡，瓷器是古代劳动人民的一个重要的创造。
瓷器的前身是原始青瓷，它是由陶器向瓷器过渡阶段的产物。中国最早的原始青瓷，发现于山西夏县东下冯龙山文化遗址中，距今约4200年。 器类有罐和钵。原始青瓷在中国分布较广，黄河领域、长江中下游及南方地区都有发现。
瓷器的种类：
一：青瓷，也叫绿瓷，釉中含有氧化铁，是最早出现的瓷器，发展到宋代时最著名的是龙泉窑。
二：黑瓷，也叫天目瓷，是在青瓷基础上增加了铁的含量烧制而成的，著名的有建窑和德清窑。
三：白瓷，由于含铁量低而形成透明釉，最著名的有定窑和邢窑，白瓷的出现使得在瓷器上作画成为可能，因此为彩瓷的发展奠定了基础。
四：青白瓷，也叫影青、隐青、映青、罩青等，釉色介于青和白之间，青中泛白、白中闪青，类冰类玉。
五：色釉瓷，指带有颜色的一道釉瓷器，是在密闭状态下烧制而成的，由于氧化铁、氧化铜等含量不同以及烧制温度不同，而呈现不同颜色的釉色。色釉瓷包括红釉、酱釉、蓝釉、黄釉、绿釉、紫釉等
六：彩绘瓷，不以釉色取胜，而是以器型、绘画和彩来取胜的瓷器。彩绘瓷的发展由青花开始，即在釉上或者釉下开始出现纹饰，出现了青花、两彩、三彩、五彩、斗彩、粉彩、古铜彩、金彩等。其中青花一般为釉下彩，三彩和五彩一般为釉上彩，而斗彩则是釉下青花而釉上五彩。
参考资料：百度百科--中国瓷器
中国是瓷器的故乡，中国瓷器的发明是中华民族对世界文明的伟大贡献，在英文中“瓷器”(china)一词也有"中国"的意思。大约在公元前16世纪的商代中期，中国就出现了早期的瓷器。因为其无论在胎体上，还是在釉层的烧制工艺上都尚显粗糙，烧制温度也较低，表现出原始性和过渡性，所以一般称其为"原始瓷"。
“瓷器”的发明始于汉代，至唐、五代时渐趋成熟；至宋代为瓷业蓬勃发展时期，定、汝、官、哥、均等窑。名重千古；元代青花和釉里红等新品迭出；明代继承并发展了宋瓷传统，宣德。成化窑制品，尤为突出；清代风格古雅浑朴，比前时稍逊，却胜在精巧华丽、美妙绝伦，康熙、雍正、乾隆时所制器物，更是出类拔萃，令人叫绝。
瓷器脱胎于陶器，它的发明是中国古代先民在烧制白陶器和印纹硬陶器的经验中，逐步探索出来的。烧制瓷器必须同时具备三个条件：一是制瓷原料必须是富含石英和绢云母等矿物质的瓷石、瓷土或高岭土；二是烧成温度须在1200℃以上；三是在器表施有高温下烧成的釉面。
原始瓷作为陶器向瓷器过渡时期的产物，与各种陶器相比，具有胎质致密、经久耐用、便于清洗、外观华美等特点，因此发展前景广阔。原始瓷烧造工艺水平和产量的不断提高，为后来瓷器逐渐取代陶器，成为中国人日常生活的主要用器奠定了基础。
中国瓷器是从陶器发展演变而成的，原始瓷器起源于3000多年前。至宋代时，名瓷名窑已遍及大半个中国，是瓷业最为繁荣的时期。当时的钧窑、哥窑、官窑、汝窑和定窑并称为五大名窑。被称为瓷都的江西景德镇在元代出产的青花瓷已成为瓷器的代表。青花瓷釉质透明如水，胎体质薄轻巧，洁白的瓷体上敷以蓝色纹饰，素雅清新，充满生机。青花瓷一经出现便风靡一时，成为景德镇的传统名瓷之冠。与青花瓷共同并称四大名瓷的还有青花玲珑瓷、粉彩瓷和颜色釉瓷。另外，还有雕塑瓷、薄胎瓷、五彩胎瓷等，均精美非常，各有特色。
多姿多彩的瓷器是中国古代的伟大发明之一，"瓷器"与"中国"在英文中同为一词，充分说明中国瓷器的精美绝伦完全可以作为中国的代表。
十八世纪以前，欧洲人还不会制造瓷器，因此中国特别是昌南镇的精美瓷器很受欢迎。在欧洲，昌南镇瓷器是十分受人珍爱的贵重物品，人们以能获得一件昌南镇瓷器为荣。就这样欧洲人就以“昌南”作为瓷器（china）和生产瓷器的“中国”（China）的代称，久而久之，欧洲人就把昌南的本意忘却了，只记得它是“瓷器”，即“中国”了。
