Chinese Porcelain

---

Jingdezhen was by no means the only or even the first place where porcelain was produced in China, but the abundance of natural resources and the accumulation of technical knowledge and skill in the area meant that it became the main site of porcelain production for the imperial palace.  After having wrested control of the Jingdezhen kilns in 1352 from the Yuan rulers who first introduced kaolin porcelain, the Ming had 12 imperial kilns in operation by 1402; in the early 1410s, they established production in Northern Vietnam after the conquest of Dai Ngu (check in later for the intriguing story of the Chu Dau kilns and the shipwreck, the Hoi An Hoard);  and by the 1430s during the Xuande period, began using locally sourced cobalt, replacing the imported Persian variety.

The early Ming Emperors were intent on keeping  porcelain special, ritualistic, and honorific.  Yongle introduced the use of reign marks, destroyed unselected imperial porcelain to limit production, and sent Zheng He, the famous Chinese mariner and explorer, on diplomatic voyages to southeast Asia and Africa bearing gifts of this translucent, lustrous treasure.  During the 1430s to the 1460s, the Ming began fighting Mongols on the Northwest border and stopped imperial orders from the Jingdezhen kilns.  While the government was otherwise occupied, multiple kilns started commercial production.  Despite a 1439 imperial ban on colored porcelain and a 1447 ban on selling porcelains to foreigners, by 1490 the Chinese commercial porcelain was booming!

From 1506 to 1521 there were local disorders which stopped production, however, by the mid-sixteenth century, Jingdezhen was  again producing ceramics on a massive scale not only to meet imperial demand (as many as hundreds of thousands of pieces were ordered on an annual basis) but also in response to growing demands from overseas.  

The Jingdezhen kilns were again stopped in 1644 due to social turmoil during the dynastic transition from Ming to Qing.  This disruption gave the emergent Japanese Arita kilns a kick-start as  European merchants turned to Japan to satisfy European porcelain hunger. 

By 1684, the Qing Emperor Kangxi had the Jingdezhen kilns back in operation, actively encouraged foreign export, and quickly made up for the 40 year absence from the export market.  This period produced  a porcelain with unrivaled technical precision with a brilliant under-glaze sapphire blue for the painting and a fine white slightly bluish silky glaze applied to a very white body.  This period also catered to such strong European demand that even poor quality products were popular and produced in such volume as to create the reputation of Kangxi porcelains to be of variable quality.  I like to think that there was something at every price point, for both the palatial and humble fireplace mantle.  

By the eighteenth century, porcelains from Jingdezhen could be found in the royal palaces of Portugal and Spain; the homes of merchants and burghers in England and the Netherlands; in temples in Japan and markets in Mexico City; on tables in colonial homes in North America; and as architectural features in buildings along the eastern coast of Africa.

Perhaps it is time for these porcelains to grace your home as well . . .