Jingdezhen is the name of the "Ceramic Capital of China", an important and, it must be said, downright famous ancient ceramic production center, located in Jiangxi province on the Kon River portion of the Yangtse river valley about 200 miles (320 kilometers) from Nanking, China.
Jingdezhen's ceramic workshops have been traced back to the Tang dynasty, when in AD 619, the local potters offered the emperor examples of very fine porcelain. Known originally as Xingping and then Changnan, the community was renamed during the Song dynasty [960-1280], when the Jingde emperor renamed the city to Jingdezhen (Jingde town), in appreciation for a tribute gift of pure white porcelains.
Imperial Porcelains
The most famous porcelains created at Jingdezhen were "yingqing" (shadow green), a thin white translucent porcelain with green highlights, approximating jade. Shadow green from Jingdezhen is not celadon, which generally refers to pots and glazes developed at the Yaozhou kilns, but it is similar. As well known as the shadow green vessels, are a blue-and-white ware also created at Jingdezhen; both of these forms are associated with the imperial courts.
The industrial (mass production) roots of Jingdezhen began to take hold during the Yuan dynasty (1280-1368 AD), when the large blue and white porcelain jars began to be produced on a large scale, in conjunction with export of the vessels to an international market. The site continued to play an important role in the production of pottery through the Ming (1368-1644 AD), and Qing dynasties (1644-1911). During its heyday, the imperial workshops and kilns covered an area of more than 50,000 square meters (12 acres).
Literary References
The earliest known references to Jingdezhen in Chinese books and poems date from the Song dynasty (960-1280). Hong Yanzu, who served as headmaster of Changxiang Academy in the late 12th century, contrasted the mud and dust of Jingdezhen to the delicacy of the ceramics made there. Jiang Qi, writing in the early 13th century about the Chinese pottery business, described Jingdezhen's 300 kilns, which produce "pure white unblemished pottery". In the Yuan dynasty, Zhao Mengfu wrote a rare critical observation, that Jingdezhen's pottery was variable, with some patterns "vulgar" and the blue-and-whites "gaudy and unsophisticated". The Song dynasty book Jingdezhen taolu praised the ceramics as "white as jade, as thin as paper, and as bright as a mirror". See Gerritsen 2009 for detailed discussion of these citations.
Jingdezhen was visited during the first decades of the 18th century by the French missionary, Père Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles. D'Entrecolles was certainly not the first or last of the foreigners who visited the pottery, but his letters to his superiors in France [1712 and 1722] were arguably the most influential on European and American potters. He described the city as containing 18,000 families, and close to one million people, fronted on three miles of the River Chang. but mostly focused on techniques, kiln furniture, glazes, and forms used by the potters for local, regional, official, royal and export markets.
Scholars believe that the Edgefield pottery in 19th century South Carolina based some of its glazes, slips and kiln construction methods on d'Entrecolles detailed descriptions of the works at Jingdezhen.
Archaeology
Studies of the ceramic wares at Jingdezhen have been conducted since the Qing dynasty. Archaeological investigations of the workshops began in the 1950s, at first restricted to surveys alone.
Excavations at Jingdezhen were conducted in the 1990s by the Institute of Ceramic Archaeology, and were focused on the imperial workshops. These yielded approximately 10 metric tons of porcelain ware sherds during the decade-long excavations.
These excavations also brought to light many fine porcelains that were used exclusively by the Chinese court, such as the double-horned, five-claw dragon motif used only by the imperial court after 1315. The excavations of the imperial workshops of the Xuande period revealed evidence of contact with Islamic potters, in the form of wares with Islamic designs.
Sources
Gerritsen A. 2009. Fragments of a Global Past: Ceramics Manufacture in Song-Yuan-Ming Jingdezhen. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 52(1):117-152.
He Y. 2010. Prosperity and decline: A comparison of the fate of Jingdezhen, Zhuxianzhen, Foshan and Hankou in modern times. Frontiers of History in China 5(1):52-85.
Hopton N, and Hopton A. 2006. Selected passages from the Letters of Père d'Entrecolles. Gotheborg.com: Jan-Erik Nilsson.
Huang EC. 2012. From the Imperial court to the international art market: Jingdezhen porcelain production as global visual culture. Journal of World History 23(1):115-145.
Li S, Wang S, and Li X. 2012. The Development of Jingdezhen in the View of Cultural Innovation. Studies in Sociology of Science 3(4).
Wang L, and Wang C. 2011. Co speciation in blue decorations of blue-and-white porcelains from Jingdezhen kiln by using XAFS spectroscopy. Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry 26(9):1796-1801.
Wu J, Leung PL, Li JZ, Stokes MJ, and Li MTW. 2000. EDXRF Studies on Blue and White Chinese Jingdezhen Porcelain Samples from the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. X-Ray Spectrometry 29:239-244.
Yang X. 2004. Imperial porcelian kiln and workshop site at Zhushan, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province. In: Yang X, editor. Chinese Archaeology in the Twentieth Century: New Perspectives on China's Past. New Haven: Yale University Press. p 540-543.
