All of the ceramics which I am studying were produced in the Jianxi province in the town of Jingdezhen, during the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty.
The Background
During the Qing period in China, the majority of porcelain was produced in or around the town of Jingdezhen in the Jiangxi province. (Click here to see Map of China) It is believed that porcelain was first manufactured at Jingdezhen at the end of the Tang Dynasty in the tenth century A.D. 1
All of the ceramics examined in this web page were produced here.
In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, the town of Jingdezhen was almost completely destroyed during the riots which prevailed as a result of China being invaded by, and falling under the foreign rule of, the Manchu tribesmen. Therefore The Imperial Porcelain Factory situated in the town was also virtually destroyed. However, in 1681, nineteen years into Kangxi’s rule, this factory was rebuilt and porcelain making was revived. This revival is thought to have been the beginning of a period "which was for long regarded as the greatest in the History of Art." 2. The factory flourished under the new rule of commissioner Zang Yingxuan, who was appointed by the Kangxi Emperor. By 1688 Zang was replaced but, the improvements he had made were starting to show. From around 1700, the porcelain produced at Jingdezhen was showing "unmistakable signs of an improving trend." 3. These signs included a greater refinement of materials, a greater whiteness of porcelain and greater intensities of colour – especially in cobalt blue.
Jiangxi, also called Kiangsi or Chiang-hsi, is a province in South-Eastern China (view map). It is a fertile agricultural and hilly province in which rice is the main crop, produced twice a year, as a result of the hot climate. This climate also enables the ceramic workshops to operate during the winter without any heating. The pottery industry in Jiangxi has for many years provided the area with a source of industry and wealth for basic living.
Jingdezhen in Jiangxi has produced most of China’s porcelain for more than a thousand years and, perhaps for this reason alone it has been named ‘The Ceramic City’. 4. Furthermore, this ‘city’s’ major resources are coal, mined in the western hills, and kaolin clays, mined here since ancient times and used for the production of porcelain. The city developed and expanded in porcelain manufacture with help from the abundant porcelain stone deposits. There were also large forests in the area and so wood was readily available for burning in the kilns. Furthermore the river which connected to two major river systems, providing an easy access route for the exportation of porcelain wares.
A kiln is a large oven used for burning, drying or processing something such as porcelain. A memoir by a man called Jiang Qi from around the thirteenth century recorded information about the kilns of Jingdezhen at that time. There were 300 kilns functioning and the firing time for porcelain was 36 hours, which is actually around the same amount of time which is given today. 5. The firing of a ceramic was considered just as important as the modelling and decoration of it. Only wood or straw was used for burning in the kilns to keep them hot, as coal turned the porcelain yellow. Furthermore, two designs of kilns had been developed by the Qing Dynasty – a simple kiln was used in the smaller workshops and a large one used for manufacturing purposes. |
The egg shaped kiln. * |
This large kiln was shaped like half an egg. One of the most important features of it was that the temperature varied in different areas of it and therefore, many different types of porcelain could be produced at a first firing inside the kiln. 6.
After the factories were rebuilt the new products in Jingdezhen, as a result of new technology and new ideas, included famille verte wares, new styles of underglaze blue porcelain and wares combining both blue and red underglaze designs.
1. Rose Kerr, Chinese Ceramics: Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty 1644-1911, Victoria and Albert Hall Museum, 1986.
2. Fujio Koyama and John Figgess, Two Thousand Years of Oriental Ceramics, London, 1961, p.123.
3. Regina Krahl with John Ayers in collaboration with Nurdan Edbahar, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul: A Complete Catalogue III: Qing Dynasty Porcelains, for Sotheby’s publications, London, 1986, p.951.
4. S.J. Vainker, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain: From Prehistory to the Present, London, 1991
5. Rose Kerr, Chinese Ceramics: Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty 1644-1911, Victoria and Albert Hall Museum, 1986, p.29.
6.Rose Kerr, Chinese Ceramics: Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty 1644-1911, Victoria and Albert Hall Museum, 1986,p. 41.
* Image from Rose Kerr, Chinese Ceramics: Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty 1644-1911, Victoria and Albert Hall Museum, 1986,p. 40.
