The Beginnings

When, after a long sea journey from Shang-tu in China, Marco Polo returned with his father Nicolò Polo and his merchant uncle Matteo to Venice in 1295, porcelain was amongst the treasures he brought back with him. Only many years later, when he was a prisoner-of-war of the Genoese and thus prevented from engaging in further travels, did Marco Polo begin to compose his travel reports, which he dictated in the French language.
These writings contain an account of Marco Polo’s discoveries in the field of fine ceramics and are notable for his use of the (French) word porcelain, which he derived from the Italian porcellana (cowrie shell).
Cowrie shells were used as financial tender and were much admired for their smooth, marble-white, hard exterior. The Italian term porcellana had been derived from porcellino (“piglet”), on account of the similarity in color between the skin of the animal and the surface of the shell. All over the world, peoples began to refer to porcelain with similarly derived terms, even in China, where porcelain had been manufactured since the T’ang dynasty (618–917 CE) if not before. The English also coined the handy term “china,” which has survived three centuries of European porcelain-making and is still in common use today. During the centuries prior to the T’ang dynasty, the kaolin-based stoneware known as proto-porcelain was constantly refined until it developed into hard-paste or “true” porcelain. Developments in China also led to porcelain being manufactured in Korea from the twelfth century onwards, while the first evidence of porcelain manufacture in Japan dates from no earlier than 1616. Nevertheless, at that point in time there was still no sign of a porcelain manufactory in Europe, where porcelain-lovers could only acquire wares through the maritime trade with the Far East.