Page 99 - 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
destructive, non-invasive energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF).
It revealed that the pink enamels of Jingdezhen were applied with the addition of
opaque white (lead-white, displaying red with white particles, which created a non-
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transparent opaque effect). The one made in the imperial workshop does not show
this opaque effect. Blue and purple green enamels were composed of manganese
violet glaze, which yielded a clear and flat effect. This composition of manganese
glaze to produce a purple colour was a technique developed locally in Jingdezhen in
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the fifteenth century.
From the comparison between Jingdezhen enamels and the Imperial Workshop
enamels, the transmission of enamel technique between Jingdezhen and Beijing was
revealed not so much as a unilinear interaction, but a two-way process. The locality
of technological innovation from different manufacturers also reveals that Jingdezhen
made its own version of enamel colour involving the addition of opaque white, which
creates an opaque effect of porcelain. This shows that Jingdezhen responded to new
techniques by improving their existing technology.
2.5.2. Beijing and Canton
The connection between the Imperial workshop and Canton has been well illustrated
by Xu Xiaodong and Shi Jingfei. Both of their research relied heavily on the Imperial
Workshop Archives records, the Canton Customs as well as correspondences of Jesuit
missionaries. They have shown that during most of the eighteenth century, Canton
58 Ibid.
59 Li Jiazhi (ed.), Zhongguo kexue jishushi taoci juan [History of Chinese Science and Technology
in Ceramic] (Beijing: Kexue Chuban she, 1998), p.479.
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