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Cleaning Tips for Your Porcelain Figurines or Dinnerware

Vintage porcelain china and vintage porcelain figurines are beautiful and delicate decorative items and are a pleasure to own; but,  they do require delicate care and protection from harsh sunlight and the potential of being chipped, cracked or broken.  Here’s a few cleaning tips for your fine porcelain.

One of your first concerns after you acquire a few pieces of porcelain is where you are going to store all these pretty items.

Usually, you want to show off or display your porcelain figurines; however, you’ll need to find an area where little children (don’t you just love them) or pets can’t topple over your lovely collectibles and fine dinnerware.

Storing Your Porcelain

The best storage area for porcelain china or similar porcelain figurines is often referred to as a china cabinet.  This is usually a cabinet with interior shelves and glass panes so you can display your fine collectibles but protect them from household dust.

Some of these china cabinets are made with wooden details that provide small wood rails or guards that will prevent the slippage of the porcelain figurine or dinnerware.   In addition, you can also place thin non-slip pads under the item you are storing.

When it comes to  porcelain collectibles, you should make an effort to keep these figurines or china out of direct sunlight. The exposure to direct sunlight over an extended period of time can fade the coloring or design details of the figurine or dinner plates.

Cleaning Your Porcelain

As for a porcelain figurine, keep it dusted with a soft bristled (preferably natural hair) paintbrush which can remove the dust and grit from crevices in the figurine that you would not be able to reach with another tool.

Another good trick is to use a can of compressed air to blow away the dust and grit.  Hobby shops have triangular shaped q-tips that are also good for this use, they are also available on Ebay.  Try to avoid over handling the porcelain figurine so that you can reduce the risk of chipping or breaking it.

If the figurine has any spot or stain, make sure you use a soft cloth that has been submerged into a mild detergent and warm water, and dab at the stain or spot rather than using a scrubbing back and forth motion.

If you are trying to clean the stain within a teacup or saucer, I have heard that the product Efferdent (the product used to clean false teeth or dentures) will do a good job of lifting any stains within the teacup or saucer without any scrubbing action.

And it’s not surprising, since industrial porcelain is used by dentists to make false teeth.  Make sure you follow the package directions for the exact amounts you should use.

As mentioned earlier, it’s usually a good idea to keep your porcelain collectibles or china stored behind glass, this way you won’t have to dust them as often and handling them less will reduce the potential of chips or breakage on the actual figurine.

porcelain figurine, girl

Try to avoid submerging your porcelain figurine in water.  However, if you have a stain that can only be removed by placing the figurine in water, make sure that you don’t submerge it for more than a few seconds.

This works well for porcelain that has a high gloss finish, but you must be even more cautious with porcelain that has a matte finish such as bisque porcelain.  A common example of bisque porcelain figurines, are the Precious Moments figurines made by Enesco.

Of course if you are washing porcelain china, now that’s a different matter, you will have to submerge the china dinnerware in soapy water.  And hand washing is especially advisable if your porcelain china dinnerware has any delicate painted gold or silver details. In order to preserve the lovely finish, avoid harsh detergents and scratchy scrubbers for your porcelain china dishware.

Be sure that you place rubber mats in the sink or soft towels nearby to prevent any jolting movement or sudden drop of a teacup or plate and thus potential chips or knicks to your china.

Keeping these tips in mind, should give you years of enjoying fine porcelain china dinnerware or your beautiful and decorative porcelain figurines. These will be treasured porcelain items that you can pass down as a family heirloom to be loved and used by future generations.

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Glassware: The Clear View on Glassware Artisans

Once you get a peek into the world of glassware artisans, it’s almost amazing to watch the combination of skill and artistry that comes with the age old techniques that are still used to make art glass and glassware today.  Who better than the Corning Glassware Museum to give a demonstration of the skills and techniques used to create blown glass and art glass.

Not too bad a product, when you realize that glass is largely made from sand (or rather silica).  According to Wikipedia…

“The history of creating glass can be traced back to 3500 BCE in Mesopotamia.[1] The term glass developed in the late Roman Empire. It was in the Roman glassmaking center at Trier, now in modern Germany, that the late-Latin term glesum originated, probably from a Germanic word for a transparent, lustrous substance”

All I can say, that meals, and the beverages we consume, at meals are made more elegant and beautiful with the addition of glassware. And what other objects can be made from glass?  Objects made out of glass include not only traditional objects such as vessels (bowls, vases, bottles, and other containers), paperweights, marbles, beads, but an endless range of sculpture and installation art as well.

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Art Pottery: An Artisan at Work

Through the power of modern day tools such as Youtube, the centuries old techniques and work  that this artisan (potter) demonstrates in this video becomes a powerful testimony to the skills and techniques passed down through generations and utilized in order to create a modern example of an ancient Greek vase.

It’s techniques similar to these which have contributed to some of the most well known American collectible potteries such as Rookwood, Napco, Lefton, etc.

In modern times, we tend to take for granted all the manufacturing processes that are involved in making the pottery and ceramic items we use everyday.  Perhaps watching this video  will allow you to see just what goes into making all the ceramic ware that is used in our daily life, such as dishes, cups, mugs and saucers in a new light.

Before modern day manufacturing techniques, this was the only way a household could obtain dishware or decorative items for their homes.

Ceramic Terms

I have  included a few ceramic terms that are pertinent to this video:

Fabric :  the clay body or paste of a ceramic.

Leather Hard:  The stage in which unfired pottery is no longer in a plastic or wet state, and can be handled without distortion to the form.

Paste:   The clays and other materials that constitute the body of a vessel.

Press Molded: A vessel or vessel element ( such as a handle or spout) which is formed by pushing wet clay over a mold.

Slip:   A liquid mixture of clay and water applied to vessel surfaces.

Throwing:  The manufacture of pottery by  hand on a wheel.