Page 85 - The colours of each piece: production and consumption of Chinese enamelled porcelain, c.1728-c.1780

CHAPTER 2 The Production of Enamelled Porcelain and Knowledge Transfer

Those who can work longer hours till midnight can earn double. This work

30
is usually done by aged and children, the lame and disabled workmen.

Applying Enamel Colours on Porcelain

Before the production process, painters first had to paint upon a white slab of porcelain,

which was used to test the colour and the time of the firing process. According to Tang

Ying, painting enamel colours on porcelain required a very skilled painter who has a

31
clear eye, attentive mind and precision painting skills. Applying enamel colour

powder to porcelain required it to be mixed with water, oil or glue, depending on the

different colour sought. The oil was useful for rendering colours; the glue is useful for

thin brushes, and the water useful for retouching the colour.

The painting tools were mainly brushes of various sizes. In order to make the

colour pigments adhere to the body, painters would need to dip the brush in water,

glue or oil before applying colours on a plain porcelain body. Figure 2-9 depicts an

eighteenth-century enamel porcelain workshop at Jingdezhen.Different sizes of brush
were used. A similar scene can also be seen in nowadays Jingdezhen. (Figure 2-10)

30 Zhu Yan, Tao Shuo [The book of porcelain] (Explanatory from Du Bin) (Jinan, 2010), p.8.
31 Ibid. p.11.
69