Page 103 - Jindezhen Porcelain Production of the 19th C. by Ellen Huang, Univ. San Diego 2008

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From the perspective of treatises on technical skills and material production, one

predecessor to the Tao lu deserves special mention: the most important general work written

on technology during the Ming dynasty, the Tiangong kaiwu (Heaven’s Craft and the

Creation of Things) written by Song Yingxing ҂Ꮠ݋. Tiangong kaiwu first appeared in

1637. Encyclopedic in breadth, it contains details about the manufacture of ceramics and

other major industrial and agricultural techniques such as metallurgy, paper-making, and the

growing of grains. Most likely, the information about porcelain manufacture was obtained

first hand since Song was born in Fengxian in northern Jiangxi, just thirty miles west of

Nanchang, and spent some of his official career as an education officer for the Fenyi district,

which is only about a hundred miles southwest of Poyang lake. Poyang lake was the center

of market flow as the Jiujiang customs station was located on its northeast corner and was

the transaction point through which all porcelain from Jingdezhen passed to the imperial

court or domestic market. Given that Tiangong kaiwu was written while Song Yingxing was

at Fenyi, a geographically proximate county to the site of porcelain exchange, Song likely

gained up-to-date information about the making of porcelain and ceramics. Like the first

and fourth chapters of the Tao lu, Tiangong kaiwu’s contents emphasized the material

processes of manufacturing and composition. Whereas the Tao lu focused specifically on

porcelain and fine wares made at Jingdezhen, Tiangong kaiwu’s section on ceramics gave an

overview of a range of ceramic objects including clay, building materials for vernacular

architecture, domestic storage vessels, and only lastly porcelain. Unlike Tao lu, Tiangong

kaiwu was not a specialized study of high-fired fine porcelain from Jingdezhen but a general

guide to various techniques necessary for the production of everyday functional material

objects, only one of which was ceramics. Its survival as a text can be traced to its reprint in