Page 187 - Jindezhen Porcelain Production of the 19th C. by Ellen Huang, Univ. San Diego 2008

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album is an image of the Jingdezhen imperial kiln center (Figure 9). The twelve pictorial

leaves depict the following scenes of the process with their headings listed below:

• obtain the clay
• purifying the clay
• making the bodies
• shaping the bodies
• mixing (ru) the blue cobalt pigment
• painting blue-and-white decoration
• applying the glaze
• stacking the kiln
• firing
• opening the kiln
• painting overglaze colors (cai hong)
• second firing (shao lu)

The preface’s textual content diverges from Tang Ying’s “Tuci jilue” written for the

Qianlong set. Both emphasize the importance of portraying each step in the technical

process: after detailing the steps and places whereby materials were to be harvested and

porcelain would be created, the writer of the preface of the early nineteenth century

album states that the “[pictures] cannot skip any step or leave out any labor” (deng bu ke

lie, gong bu ke que ഃʔ̙㏁, ̌ʔ̙ॹ). Whereas Tang Ying begins his narrative by

locating the genealogy of cultivating porcelain (taoye ௗз) with the Three Dynasties

reign of Emperor Shun (ຽᇆ໬˾അጳௗ͍ʘ֜ the Jingdezhen taotuji album begins

its narrative with a description of the physical distance between the Jingdezhen township

from the Raozhou prefecture. After specifying the geographical location of Jingdezhen,

the preface narrates the history of the imperial kiln administration beginning with the

second year of the Ming dynasty’s first emperor, Hongwu. It then begins to discuss the

shift from Ming system of eunuchs who oversaw imperial kiln production to the resident

kiln supervisor sent from the Neiwufu and concludes with the transfer of administrative