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between the original woodblock prints and the French pictures, which portrayed scenes

vertically. Unlike the Jingdezhen Tao lu, there are no lengthy textual explanations of each

picture in the French book, only one line captions. The fourteen images constitute their own

chapter, as they were appended in a section entitled “Planches” at the end of the book. Just

as Julien re-oriented the title in order to showcase porcelain as a Chinese object, so too did

he re-fashion the French version’s visual images in a way that sinified porcelain. Instead of

translating the title as “Records of Jingdezhen Ceramics,” Julien located in the realm of

China rather than Jingdezhen when he entitled the French version as Histoire et

Fabrication de la Porcelaine chinois. Whereas Zheng Tinggui included two maps in the

1815 Jingdezhen Tao lu -- one of Jingdezhen and the other of the imperial kiln center --

Julien’s version included only one map. The map was the last image of the book. It was,

as Figure 6 demonstrates, a map of the various porcelain production centers in La Chine

(China) (Figure 6). Ostensibly, the map of Jingdezhen was missing. Juxtaposing the

images of Jingdezhen Tao lu with those of Julien’s Histoire et Fabrication de la

Porcelaine chinoise also demonstrates a compression of the scenes in the French

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illustrations (Figure 7). One effect of the space compression is that the French pictures
portray a more up-close view of the people making porcelain. In other words, Julien’s

version consisted of shrunken images that magnified the labor and manufacturing actions.

By comparison, Julien’s book displayed a practical and didactic purpose: to explain and

understand technique necessary to make porcelain. The French layout betrayed its

purpose as potter’s instructional guide- much more so than its blueprint images of the

original book Jingdezhen Tao lu. These not insignificant layout and content alterations

reveal the fissures in interpretation over the writing, printing, and production of an