Page 173 - Jindezhen Porcelain Production of the 19th C. by Ellen Huang, Univ. San Diego 2008

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• Tiles
• Bricks
• Bottles and Jars
• White Porcelain
• Blue-and-White ware
• Kiln Transmutation and Mohammedan Blue

Corresponding to these subheadings, Tiangong kaiwu contained thirteen simple

sketches printed by woodblock carving technique. Each image portrayed people in the

process of making different ceramic objects (including tiles and bricks) loading the kiln, and
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molding clay. Altogether, Tiangong kaiwu included thirteen images under these headings:

• making tiles
• removing tiles from center bodies
• making bricks (zhuan)
• coal- fired brick kilns
• making large jars (gang)
• firing water and quenching water
• bottle kilns connecting with large jar kilns
• making bottles (ping)
• shaping and polishing bodies with potter wheels
• dipping porcelain vessels in water
• glazing porcelain vessels
• porcelain kilns
• painting and decorating blue-and-white

As the group of pictures indicates, the layout and content showed no specific attention to

the order of a production process. Instead, the images were grouped together in a general

ceramic technology chapter called "Molding Ceramics" (Tao ShanௗẂ). The first three

themes depicted woodblock pictures of specific objects: tiles, bricks, and water jugs. The

last six images are exclusively concerned with porcelain, which was not necessarily

denoted by the word ci ନ. These pictures are not geographically specific nor is there

any graphic visualization of a landscape background. As flat images, they are generally

drawn without perspective, much like the text-image couplets in Wang Zhen's woodblock