Porcelain is an important creation of ancient working people, it is not only an important card of China’s ancient foreign trade goods, but also a treasure of Chinese civilization.
During the Song and Yuan dynasties, with the decline of the major northern kilns and the introduction of porcelain in Jingdezhen, Jingdezhen gradually took the top seat in the ancient Chinese porcelain industry. From blue and white porcelain, black porcelain to egg white glaze, glaze red, and then to Jilan, red and green color, a wide range of Jingdezhen porcelain not only let the European aristocracy loved, in the set off the European “table revolution” at the same time, but also brought huge profit margins to the merchants.
At the same time, imitators of Jingdezhen also emerged around the world, constituting a unique “Jingdezhen market”.
Traditional design of German celadon coffee cookware, where technology cannot be monopolized and culture learns from each other (Photo: shutterstock@paul atkinson) ▼
Danyi firing porcelain light and hard, buckle as mourning jade Jincheng pass
Jingdezhen, located in the northeast of Jiangxi Province and the banks of the Chang River, its porcelain history can be traced back to the earliest Eastern Han Dynasty. In the north Xing kiln, the south Yue kiln to this industry is known throughout the country, Jingdezhen is still only a relatively dense porcelain kilns in the mountains of northeast Gangshan handicraft workshop area.
Jingdezhen ceramic handicraft workshop (Jingdezhen Ancient Kiln Folklore Expo, photo @ Cold Night Cold Star) ▼
But Jingdezhen’s unique natural environment has long laid the groundwork for it to become a porcelain capital.
Although the mountainous region of northeastern Ganzhou is relatively closed, the dense mountain forests in its upper reaches not only provide high-quality wood kilns for the majority of kilns, but also a large number of high-quality porcelain stones and porcelain clay are distributed in the region. The famous kaolin was first discovered here and was named by the German geographer Leeichhofen.
And the Changjiang River flowing through here is connected with Poyang Lake water system, so the porcelain produced here can be shipped to the whole country and even the whole world through the waterways of Poyang Lake water system and Yangtze River golden waterway.
As long as it can enter the Yangtze River system, it is feasible from North China, West to Xichuan, South to Lingnan, and Winter to overseas (bottom picture from: NASA)▼
Between the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty, Jingdezhen’s original firing of blue and white porcelain began to find a place in the Song Dynasty, where the five famous kilns were located.
It was also during the Northern Song Dynasty that Jingdezhen gradually transformed from an unknown local producer of ceramics and handicrafts to an imperial kiln favored by the imperial family of the Northern Song Dynasty. During the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of the Northern Song Dynasty, he loved the blue and white porcelain produced in Jingdezhen, and the name Jingdezhen was derived from his Jingde year.
In 1127, as the Jin army moved south, with the migration of the population and the southward shift of the economic center of gravity, the well-known porcelain kilns in the north declined one after another, and Jingdezhen further became the center of the national porcelain industry.
The center of industry and manufacturing during the Northern Song period was actually in the north, and the overthrow of the Northern Song led to a forced shift of manufacturing demand and teams to the south▼
During the Yuan Dynasty, Jingdezhen was valued by the imperial family of the Mongolian Yuan, and Kublai had set up the Fuliang Porcelain Bureau in Fuliang County, the administrative unit in charge of Jingdezhen, to supervise and fire the royal porcelain. At this time, Jingdezhen also produced the famous blue and white porcelain. In the Maritime Silk Road trade was most prosperous in the Yuan Dynasty, porcelain became the largest number of exports in China’s foreign trade at that time.
During the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang also set up the Imperial Ware Factory in Jingdezhen (renamed the Imperial Kiln Factory during the Qing Dynasty), thus serving the royal family’s top porcelain firing research and development department was born.
Although the imperial family, in order to prevent the inflow of imperial porcelain and technology into the people, the unselected porcelain and defective products were destroyed centrally, but in the face of internal and external crises and financial difficulties, Jingdezhen also appeared in the middle and late Ming dynasty for the official kiln services of the private kilns, the formation of the “government to burn the people” situation, again stimulated the egg white glaze, glaze red and other color glaze porcelain The introduction of the product categories of Jingdezhen was enriched.
The burial pit of official porcelain kilns during the Ming Yongle period at the Royal Kiln Factory (Jingdezhen Royal Kiln Factory National Archaeological Site Park) (Photo @ Cold Night Cold Star) ▼
White glaze blue and white flowers are formed by one fire, and the flowers are distinct from the glaze
In the 17th century, with the establishment of the Dutch East India Company, the trade between Europe and the East was gradually monopolized by it.
The Dutch soon realized that the porcelain trade in the East would be one of the most profitable categories. Due to the limited sailing technology at the time, the cost and expense of shipping porcelain back from the East was greater, so some merchants intended to make a local cottage.
Dutch colonies and trading posts (red dots) around the world, but the most important market is still the European market, tropical regional products may not be replaced, but the ceramic silk processing products such as copycats can save huge costs▼
Thus, the imitation of Chinese porcelain was the first to appear in Delft, the Netherlands. Local artisans used a tin-glazed pottery technique passed down from the Arabs. Although this firing was able to achieve a smooth and shiny surface like Jingdezhen celadon, it could not make a hard glaze, so the products produced in Delft, the Netherlands, were actually blue pottery, although they looked like celadon.
Delft products from the mid-17th century, which look different to the touch, but really look quite imitative (Photo: wikipedia@Willem Verstraeten)▼
But in the European market at the time, those who could see real blue and white porcelain were either rich or noble, and the commoners actually lacked the ability to distinguish between pottery and porcelain, so there was a market for such copycat goods.
Dutch craftsmen also tried hard to keep up with their Chinese counterparts in terms of patterns, and in addition to applying the common flower and bird motifs in blue and white porcelain, they also copied the Chinese cursive script in Yuan blue and white porcelain. However, most of the Dutch craftsmen at that time did not know Chinese characters, so the pottery produced often appeared not in the West, “ghost” written symbols.
Delft 1730, imported from China (photo: wikipedia@Daderot)▼
Nevertheless, Delft blue pottery developed its own style later on, for example, Dutch windmills and flowers are typical ornaments of the later Delft blue pottery, which is also treated as a Dutch national treasure.
Although it started as a cottage industry in the early days, the technology could not be monopolized, and today the Delft pottery industry is at a fairly high level and is a well-deserved Dutch national treasure (Photo: Zoltan Tarlacz / Shutterstock)▼
But essentially, the loose texture of Dutch pottery at that time could not meet the needs of daily life and was dubbed “rat-bite porcelain” by the European market. With the successful firing of German porcelain, the discovery of kaolin and the continued import of Chinese porcelain, Delft’s blue pottery industry eventually became unsustainable.
Jingdezhen blue and white porcelain cottages from the Netherlands and Belgium, the first from the right is Delft blue pottery (Jingdezhen Chinese Ceramics Museum, photo @ Cold Night and Star) ▼
In addition to the Dutch Delft, the Arab region, eastern Africa have imitated Jingdezhen porcelain, but these cottage competition have not been able to withstand the test of the market, and finally the basic have disappeared, but only the Japanese Evans porcelain this “cottage products” hit their own market.
The tricky plucking bright moon dyed spring water, lightly swirled thin ice Sheng green clouds
In 1592, Toyotomi Hideyoshi led an invasion of Korea, and the Ming Dynasty sent troops to assist, known as the Wanli Korean War. During the war, Toyotomi Hideyoshi brought back from Joseon a ceramic craftsman named Li Sampei and sponsored him to make pottery in many places in Japan.
In 1616, Lee found ideal porcelain clay and porcelain stones in the mountains of Arita-cho, Japan, and settled there to make ceramics. This is the Arita-yaki pottery of Japan, which is called Iwanri porcelain because it is exported out of Japan through the port of Iwanri.
Arita-cho and Iwanri porcelain (Photo: shutterstock)▼
The background to this porcelain’s massive foreign exchange creation was the tightening of our maritime foreign trade from the mid to late Ming Dynasty, and the more stringent policy of sea bans imposed by the Qing Dynasty at the turn of the Ming and Qing Dynasties to guard against the forces of the Southern Ming and the Zheng group in Taiwan.
Ivory porcelain from the early 17th century, a small test run (Photo: wikipedia@Metropolitan Museum of Art)▼
In the case of the original goods are nowhere to buy, European merchants can only buy imitation products from Japan, the Japanese Ivory porcelain thus occupied the market gap under the shortage of porcelain in Jingdezhen. By the end of the 17th century, Japan also fired a painted porcelain to show its own national characteristics, and widely spread.
Ivory porcelain tableware from the 17th to 18th centuries, already alive as it was (Photo: wikipedia@Daderot)▼
In 1683, the Qing Emperor Kangxi sent Shi Lang to recover Taiwan, followed by the lifting of the ban on the four southeastern provinces of the sea policy, the genuine Jingdezhen porcelain exported to Europe again.
However, at this time, there are many European aristocratic consumers have fallen in love with the Japanese blue and red with gold style of Ivory porcelain, so Jingdezhen porcelain also began to reverse imitation, and successfully squeezed the market share of Ivory porcelain.
Ivory style porcelain plate. On the left is a blue-and-red gilt-painted garden plate from Jingdezhen, and on the right is a Japanese blue-and-red figure story plate (Jingdezhen Chinese Ceramics Museum, photo @ Cold Night Cold Star)▼
This is the beginning of Jingdezhen “copycat” other products.
With excellent porcelain production techniques and technology, Jingdezhen production of Ivanhoe porcelain in the European market successfully counteracted the Japanese Ivanhoe porcelain, coupled with the existing blue and white porcelain, egg white glaze and other products, Jingdezhen porcelain exports to record highs, some new products also began to emerge.
For example, enamel ware is the European favorite enamel as a material decorated with objects, including painting enamel because it has a similar shiny surface to porcelain, was once called “foreign porcelain” in China. After its introduction to China, this beautiful ware was loved by the Kang, Yong and Qian Dynasties, who also ordered the establishment of an enamel workshop.
A Qianlong famille-rose enamel vase with eight treasures on a green ground, Qing dynasty (Jingdezhen Chinese Ceramics Museum, photo @ Cold Night Star) ▼
It was from the late Kangxi period that Jingdezhen developed pastel colors based on enamel porcelain (enamel on porcelain). During the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods, Jingdezhen’s pastel firing techniques were greatly improved, and its pastel texture was comparable to that of enamel ware, and it was also exported to Europe in reverse.
Although sales were good, we have seen the crisis faced by the traditional ceramic industry in Jingdezhen from the firing of pastel colors.
Jingdezhen’s ceramic handicraft industry was developed with the government as the keynote and the market as the guide. However, the middle of the Qing dynasty first appeared in the Palace Office and the Qing dynasty, Guangdong enamel workshops, after the Opium War, with the demand for Western custom porcelain, Guangzhou “Guangcai” porcelain and further impact on the Jingdezhen porcelain industry.
The “Guangcai” porcelain, as a kind of pastel, could be painted with Western mythology and noble heraldry according to the needs of European customers.
This porcelain early, but also Jingdezhen white porcelain tires as the bottom, in Guangzhou by Western painters or local painters to complete the coloring firing. But later, in order to save costs, Guangcai merchants began to look for suppliers in Chaoshan and Minnan, and the distant Jingdezhen gradually became an outcast.
The withdrawal of government-run institutions and the loss of orders from the market front in turn forced traditional ceramic craftsmen from Jingdezhen to move south to Guangzhou and the various ports of commerce that opened afterwards. Jingdezhen in the mountains of northeastern Gan, whether it is a keen grasp of the frontier market, or foreign trade in the commodity export conditions, at this time have been inferior to Guangzhou and other southeastern port cities.
A blue-and-white open Arabic plate from nearby Zhangzhou, Fujian, at the end of the Qing dynasty (image from the original, taken at the Jingdezhen Chinese Ceramics Museum) ▼
In fact, from the day Lee Hirshhorn discovered the composition of kaolin, from the day Germany developed the first European porcelain, from the day Guangzhou boxed exported Guangcai porcelain, Jingdezhen, the rise of the emperor’s order, but never washed off the color of traditional agricultural society, handicraft city, is destined to be under the tide of economic globalization will be violently impacted.
Jingdezhen is still the porcelain capital in the public’s mouth, but Jingdezhen is no longer the porcelain capital in the public’s mind.
References.
Ye Zhemin, “The History of Chinese Ceramics”, Life, Reading and New Knowledge, 2006.
Xu Huailin: A General History of Jiangxi (Southern Song Dynasty Volume), Jiangxi People’s Publishing House, 2009.
Liang Hongsheng and Li Pingliang, “General History of Jiangxi (Pre-Qing Period Volume)”, Jiangxi People’s Publishing House, 2009.
Liu Yi: “Jingdezhen porcelain achievements and its reasons for becoming the “porcelain capital”,” Southern Heritage, No. 3, 1996.
“Dialogue with the world of Jingdezhen: Return – Silk Road porcelain canon – Silk Road ceramics witnessed over 500 years of globalization” heritage exhibition, Jingdezhen Chinese Ceramic Museum.
Four episodes of the documentary “Jingdezhen”, CCTV.
