Soft-paste porcelain is a type of porcelain made from a mixture of white clay and other materials, such as ground glass, bone ash or soapstone, rather than the kaolin and petuntse used for true hard-paste porcelain. It was developed in Europe as makers attempted to imitate the prized porcelain imported from China, and it is fired at a lower temperature than hard-paste.
An early form was made in Florence in the late sixteenth century under Medici patronage, but soft-paste production flourished in the eighteenth century at French factories such as Saint-Cloud, Chantilly, Mennecy and Vincennes, later Sèvres. In England, most eighteenth-century factories made soft-paste wares, including Chelsea, Bow, Derby, Worcester, Lowestoft and Longton Hall, and the Welsh factories of Nantgarw and Swansea produced exceptionally fine examples in the early nineteenth century. Soft-paste has a warm, slightly creamy appearance, and the glaze sits on the surface, sometimes pooling and crazing. Chips show a granular body rather than the glassy fracture of hard-paste. The material is prone to staining, firing cracks and damage, so condition greatly affects value. Collectors prize soft-paste for its soft, rich colours, which seem to melt into the glaze.
