Page 175 - Jindezhen Porcelain Production of the 19th C. by Ellen Huang, Univ. San Diego 2008

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period that saw the inception of a verifiable genre of visual images, now widely known

by its conventional label of Taoye tu. By the close of nineteenth century, the genre

encompassed not only two-dimensional media but also decorative motifs on porcelain

objects themselves.

There are, to date, three known sets of paintings that are court productions that

depict porcelain in the format of a process-oriented visual experience. The most famous

set of porcelain manufacturing illustrations dates almost a century after the woodblock

illustrations of the Tiangong kaiwu and are now owned in a private collection in

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Taiwan. It consists of a brief introduction to the album written by Tang Ying entitled

“Tuci jilue ྡϣߏଫ” (Summary Record on the Order of Illustrations) and depicts the

manufacturing process in detailed and sequentially arranged fashion, consisting of twenty

images:

• collection of stone and making the clay
• washing and purification of clay
• burning the ashes and preparing the glazes
• manufacture of the saggars (zhi zao xia bo)
• preparing the molds for round wares (yuanqi xiu mo)
• throwing the bodies on the wheel (yuanqi la pei)
• fabrication of the vases
• collection of blue cobalt
• purification of the cobalt pigment material (lian xuan qing liao)
• molding the body and grinding the cobalt pigment (yin pei ru liao)
• painting the blue-and-white decoration on round vessels (yuan qi qing hua)
• fabrication and painting on vases (zhi hua zhuo qi)
• glazing by dipping and blowing (zhan you chui you)
• scraping the body and cutting the foot (xuan pei wa zu)
• stacking the pieces in the kiln
• firing and opening the kiln
• decorating round wares and vases with overglaze enamels (yang cai)
• open and closed stove
• wrapping with straw and packing in containers (shu cao zhuang tong)
• worshipping the god and offering sacrifices (sishen chou yuan٠ग़ཇᗴ)