Porcelain

Porcelain is the case where the objects traveled long before the method. Glazed stoneware had become porcelain by the Eastern Han dynasty, and by the late Sui and early Tang potters had achieved the whiteness and translucency the word now implies. By the 9th century Tang wares were being exported to the Islamic world, where they were highly prized. Europe's first mention is in Marco Polo's 13th-century account, and Florence's Medici porcelain of the 16th century was the first real attempt to copy it, with little success. The recipe itself was cracked at Meissen in Saxony, where the first hard European porcelain was made in 1708. The Jesuit François Xavier d'Entrecolles's letters from 1712 then spread detailed Chinese methods across Europe.