Page 136 - Jindezhen Porcelain Production of the 19th C. by Ellen Huang, Univ. San Diego 2008

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Ying’s textual explanations of the manufacturing process, Zheng Tinggui’s comments

and the visual content in the fourteen woodblock prints of Jingdezhen Tao lu convey

porcelain as a Jingdezhen-specific product. Compared to the Qianlong court paintings,

Tao lu’s woodblock prints display an emphasis on the geographical location of the

porcelain production process: the Jingdezhen locale. The Jingdezhen emphasis manifests

itself in the differences between the sequence and content of the first few images. The

Qianlong-commissioned set, Taoye tu, begins immediately with the technical process: the

first leaves of the album portray stone collection and then clay fabrication. The Taoye tu

album ends with an illustration of the production of court ritual vessels. In Zheng’s Tao

lu woodblock sequence, the first two illustrations are respectively a print of a Jingdezhen

city map and an image of the spatial layout of the imperial kiln (Figure 11). By revising

and adding a map of Jingdezhen to the original set of visual images and the imperial kiln

depot (yuyao chang ੿ᇉᅀ), Zheng’s woodblock set enables audiences to see the

geographical location and its significance as a producer of imperial objects first before

viewers see steps of the porcelain production process. Zheng’s ordering of visual prints

brings to the fore Jingdezhen as the site of porcelain manufacturing.

The placement of an image of the imperial kiln depot as the second illustration in

this opening set of prints also reinforces the idea that Jingdezhen porcelain and

Jingdezhen’s significance stemmed from its relationship to the court and various imperial

usages: tribute, ritual, or decorative. Zheng makes no pretense to originality and

acknowledges forthrightly his debt to Tang Ying’s explanations at the end of the chapter.

His addition of the imperial kiln depot illustration at the beginning of his book

consequently impresses upon readers and viewers that porcelain from Jingdezhen derived