Page 124 - Jindezhen Porcelain Production of the 19th C. by Ellen Huang, Univ. San Diego 2008

107

individual potters’ technical skills and ceramic creation. Unlike Tessai’s Japanese

preface, the Chinese language prefaces and postscripts made no mention of individual

potter’s names or technical skill. The fact that both the Japanese and French translations

were published in a time of increasing state-to-state clashes, especially the defeat of the

Qing by Meiji and French forces, illuminates clearly the strange links between state

formation, imperialism, scientific knowledge and artistic practice of porcelain at the

dawn of the twentieth century.

The foregoing summary of Tao lu’s publishing history traced the instances in

62
which the text appeared. In other words, the narrative focused on the multiple places

and times in which Jingdezhen Tao lu appeared and the attitudes embedded within its

translations and appropriations. From the time of its first printing, to its mid-nineteenth

century appearance in collecting circles and through its international, albeit roundabout,

peregrination, the Tao lu’s path to canonization reveals much about how texts and

knowledge were produced in the nineteenth century. It also illuminates how canon

formation took on an international and inter-textual nature as well as the diversity of

purposes for writing (and picturing) Jingdezhen porcelain’s historical narrative.

IV. A Comparison of Individual Texts: Tao Shuo and Tao Lu

As mentioned, the late Qianlong period saw the rise of two full-length

monographs about porcelain, the first being the one anthologized in 1794 in a

compendium of old and rare books called Longwei mishu. The earlier text was the Tao

Shuo, a predecessor of Jingdezhen Tao lu in that it was a specialized full-length

63
manuscript on porcelain. Written by Zhu Yan ϡ∓ (zi: Zhu Tongchuan ϡࣶʇ) and