Page 70 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780
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CHAPTER 2 The Production of Enamelled Porcelain and Knowledge Transfer
the term ‘Imari’ is a loose one which is used in Europe to describe all Japanese
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enamelled wares except Kakiemon.
By the 1680s, the porcelain production in Jingdezhen was re-organised by the
Qing empire. New shapes and new decorations were introduced and it was obvious
that its competitor Japan of export markets played a central role. Jingdezhen started
to produce imitation of Japanese Imari porcelain which eventually dominated the
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European market. At this moment, over-glaze enamel porcelain (famille verte)
tended to dominate in the Kangxi period (r.1644-1722). During the early part of
Kangxi’s reign in the late seventeenth cenutry, famille verte appeared. It is worth
noting that despite the explosion of production and trade, close examination of Kangxi
enamelled wares shows that enamels technology remained much the same as it was in
15
the fifteenth century.
However, Kangxi famille verte is distinguished by the use of a new enamel-
overglaze blue enamel. This blue enamel was made from a pulverised blue glass that
was also used at the time as a glass enamel on metal. Jingdezhen potters crushed and
washed this blue glass (which came originally from Beijing or Canton), and mixed it
with gum or fish-glue to make the Kangxi overglaze blue enamel. Père d'Entrecolles
puts the introduction of the Jingdezhen overglaze blue at about AD1700 and mentions
16
that is appeared at Jingdezhen at about same time as fired-on gilding. During the
Kangxi reign, a new body material which Talc replaced kaolin, which known as ‘soft
paste’. The talc and porcelain stone mix gave the body still whiter and lighter than the
13 Ibid., p.31.
14 Ibid. p.32.
15 For an analysis of Kangxi over-glaze enamels, see Wood, Chinese Glazes, pp.240-241.
16 Nigel Wood, Chinese Glazes: Their Origins, Chemistry, and Recreation (London, 1999), pp.240-
241.
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