Jingdezhen porcelain

[8] The imperial kilns were situated at Pearl Hill (Zhushan) in Jingdezhen; some scholars give a date of 1369 for the commencement of production.

Production was on a huge scale, employing hundreds if not thousands of workers, whose tasks were divided into several specialities to increase efficiency and consistency.

[14] A recently excavated Ming princely burial has yielded the first example to survive until modern times of a type of gaiwan set known from 15th-century paintings.

[16] Under the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–24), reign marks were introduced for the first time, applied to porcelain and other types of luxury products made for the imperial court.

[18] Apart from the much smaller production of monochrome stoneware "official Jun" wares from Henan, used in the palace for flowerpots and the like, Jingdezhen was now the only area making imperial ceramics.

This suggests the close personal interest some emperors took in the imperial potteries, and also that some secrets must have been restricted to a small group of potters.

In this period the enormous quantities of porcelain made in China seem to have led to low prices and a loss of prestige, at court and in Chinese society in general.

This is not the first period of antiquarianism and archaism in Chinese taste, but it has proved long-lasting, and had a considerable effect on subsequent production, producing waves of revivalism, imitation and much downright fakery—the three often being hard to distinguish.

[26] As the Ming dynasty declined, with serious military and financial crises, the imperial court ceased to support the official Jingdezhen kilns, which were largely left to find their own funds from other markets.

This situation lasted from 1620 to 1683, when the new Qing dynasty, after some decades struggling with Ming forces, finally resumed large-scale use of Jingdezhen for official wares under the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662–1722).

The larger kilns and a major part of the town were destroyed in 1674 by Ming forces after the Revolt of the Three Feudatories had become a civil war.

Towards the end of the period the first famille rose porcelains appeared; the various colour "families" were to dominate production for the luxury market under the Qing.

These were the last major technical innovations at Jingdezhen, along with a technique for firing gold onto porcelain, rather than mercury gilding completed pieces.

A key event in this process was the flight of the remaining Northern Song court to the south, after they lost control of the north in the disastrous Jin-Song wars of the 1120s.

[36] From the mid-14th century, Jingdezhen began to mass-produce underglaze blue porcelain, whose development it pioneered, making it "one of the world's earliest industrial towns".

[43] One of the largest intact early collections of exported Chinese porcelain was at the Ardabil Shrine, and is now in the National Museum of Iran.

[47] This trend continued in Transitional porcelain, produced for a period up to 1683 at the end of the Ming dynasty, and the later blue and white wares of the Kangxi reign are the final phase in the artistic development of blue and white, with superb technical quality in the best objects, and larger images, flexibly treated, on a wide variety of subjects.

[48] Tianqi porcelain is a type of relatively informal ware, largely destined for the Japanese market, made at Jingdezhen in the 17th century.

Strictly defined, it "is distinguished by the arrangement of its ornament into panels; these usually radiate to a bracketed rim notorious for its liability to chip".

[50] It was mostly made as "deep bowls and wide dishes", decorated with motifs from nature, in a style not used on wares for the domestic Chinese market.

[51] During the Qing period production became more varied, with a wide spread of styles and qualities, from imperial wares, through those for export, to those for a popular domestic market.

[53] The French Jesuit François Xavier d'Entrecolles visited Jingdezhen and wrote to Europe about its processes between 1712 and 1721; he also gave the Chinese useful information about European pigments.

He was also appointed controller for a customs barrier 400 miles to the north at Huai'an on the Grand Canal, which resulted in Nian only being able to visit Jingdezhen once a year.

[56] In 1739 the customs office was moved to Jiujiang 90 miles west of Jingdezhen; Tang continued in the dual post until recalled to Beijing in 1743 by the Qianlong emperor.

[60] Tang also wrote a number of books including A Complete Record of Pots (1735), Mental Notes of a Pottery Worker (1738) and Illustrated Explanation of the Miracles of the God of the Furnace (1747).

[63][64] In 1905 a European visitor reported that most production was in a short summer season, when workers from surrounding areas came to live in "barrack-like sheds" in the city, without their families.

These early collections, typically of blue-and-white ware, were regarded as rare curios and art objects, and were often mounted in precious metals.

[67] During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a number of European companies were established to import various commodities including tea, silk, spices, lacquerwork and porcelain from East Asia.

[69] The massive increase in imports allowed purchasers to amass large collections, which were often displayed in dedicated rooms or purpose-built structures.

By blocking the kiln vents to restrict air flow to the fire a reducing atmosphere of hydrogen and carbon monoxide could be maintained, which was necessary for some glazes such as copper red.