Speaking of the contributions of the "porcelain capital" Jingdezhen to Chinese ceramics, we must start with the Qinghua porcelain of the Yuan Dynasty. There were other areas that produced Qinghua in the Yuan Dynasty, such as Jiangshan of Zhejiang Province, Jianshui and Yuxi of Yunnan Province.
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| Qinghua chrysanthemum petal dish with illustration of figures and buildings. | However, none of them came even close to the sheer quality, volume and aesthetic value of Jingdezhen Qinghua. Qinghua porcelain was a kind of underglaze colored porcelain. It relied on natural cobalt minerals as coloring, painting imagery and motifs on top of the clay body with Chinese calligraphy brush. Then with the application of a transparent glaze, it was fired a single time under high temperatures. Its was first created in Gong County, Henan Province in the Tang Dynasty, and continued to be produced through the Song Dynasty. By the Yuan Dynasty, the art had attained a level of maturity.
Its colors were refined and elegant, capturing the gracefulness of traditional Chinese ink and
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| Qinghua dish with Sanskrit inscriptions. Kangxi period. Collection of the Museum of Tibet. | wash paintings. Starting with the Yuan and through the Ming and Qing Dynasties, regardless of Imperial kilns or commoner's kilns, the Qinghua was a most popular product. The Qinghua was also the colored porcelain product with artistic style that was most representative of the Chinese. It also started with Qinghua porcelain in the Yuan Dynasty, as single-colored Chinese porcelain began to be replaced by porcelain ware with colored decorations.
There were several reasons for the maturing of Qinghua porcelain in the Yuan Dynasty. Prior to that time, Jingdezhen's porcelain wares from porcelain stones were comparatively soft, with maturing temperatures at 1,200 degrees Celsius. The newly discovered Kaolin was then mixed with
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| The fine art style in Western Asia influenced the Chinese Qinghua porcelain in glase colors and patterns.(1) | porcelain stone as the raw material. The compound material raised maturing temperatures to 1,300 degrees Celsius, also improving hardness and rigidity in the porcelain body. In addition, higher aluminum content in Kaolin made the porcelain whiter in color, an improvement in body that laid the foundation for the creation of Qinghua. Jingdezhen produced no colored porcelain in the Tang and Song Dynasties. The Qingbai, or blue and white, porcelain of the Song Dynasty was only added artistic treatment to the original color of the porcelain.
However, with paintings and illustrations as the foremost decorative method, the Qinghua required a manual painting technique never before used in Jingdezhen. Amidst the turbulence of the war between the Song Chinese and the Yuan
Mongolians, a great influx of ceramic artisans from the Cizhou kilns of northern China found its way to Jingdezhen; these people possessed this kind of painting skills. Soon after, imprinted, painted and engraved images began to appear on the glistening white surfaces of porcelain ware. It was the new prevalence in Yuan Dynasty porcelain-making. Aside from provisions for the daily consumption and use of the Chinese, the need for porcelain supply in overseas trade also stimulated the porcelain industry in the Yuan Dynasty.
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| The fine art style in Western Asia influenced the Chinese Qinghua porcelain in glase colors and patterns.(2) | The Yuan Dynasty, ruled by the Mongols, spanned across Europe and Asia, which built the grounds for a broad and extensive market for the commercial and handicraft industries. Especially in the early parts of the Yuan Dynasty, there were once protective measures implemented for export goods. The shipbuilding industry, intimately tied in with overseas trading, was already a booming business by the
Northern Song Dynasty. There were increased demands from abroad for Chinese porcelain and silk products every year, including the areas of East Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, Southeast Asia, East Africa, North Africa, and West Africa and so on.
In fact, the ceramics industry of West Asia, since the 10th century, has never stopped production of underglaze colored ware, especially the Qinghua. Today, in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. are 14t" century Qinghua bowls with underglaze paintings in blue, green and white; all were made in Iran. However, due to the rather poor quality of the raw material used for the body and glaze in the Middle East, and with a lower maturing temperature, its was never able achieve the quality of Chinese Qinghua porcelain.
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| The fine art style in Western Asia influenced the Chinese Qinghua porcelain in glase colors and patterns.(3) | Topkapi Palace in Turkey houses 13,508 pieces of Chinese porcelain, 40 of which are Qinghua. It is considered the largest and finest collection of Yuan Dynasty Qinghua anywhere in the world. The collection includes many Yuan Qinghua specimens such as large dishes, bowls, bottle gourd, octagon Meiping vases and so on. Dense patterns adorn the entire bodies of the vessel, not leaving any blank areas of the ground; something rarely seen in domestic Chinese vessels. The illustrations are exquisite and with a sense of depth; the colors are compelling with uniform application. Overall, these motifs and the brightness of the Qinghua colors can be considered the finest in the world, surpassing the quality Chinese domestic Qinghua by far.
Many pieces of this collection are one of a kind: the largest polygonal dish in the world with a diameter of 41.5 cm, sports white patterns on blue ground, showing the mystical animal – Kylin and two phoenixes; the bottle gourd with peony motifs, 70 cm tall is also the only one of its kind in the world; another pair of polygonal calabash are the tallest in the world, and many more. Why is it that the most exquisite pieces of Yuan Dynasty Qinghua are not in China, but instead rest in the palace of an
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| The fine art style in Western Asia influenced the Chinese Qinghua porcelain in glase colors and patterns.(4) | exotic land? This is evidence of a prosperous time in the history of Sino-foreign cultural and commercial exchanges. These porcelain wares were not made for the use or consumption by Chinese, instead were custom made for the Islamic nations.
Through the Silk Road, Chinese porcelain found its way to Central and West Asia, and was loved by the royalties of the Ottoman Empire; it was the symbol of fashion and luxury for their times. In order to coincide their religious beliefs with functional items, West Asian merchants brought with them cobalt coloring and drawings of their desired products to Jingdezhen of China, and placed their orders directly. These porcelain wares were considered further processing of supplied material, and were tailored for the customs in Islamic cultures; thus it was rarely seen in China.
It is highly probable that West Asian artisans joined the design and making of Yuan Dynasty Qinghua. The area named Samarra in present day Iraq, rich in cobalt, was confirmed the supplying region for the blue underglaze coloring called "Sumali-Qing" used in Yuan Dynasty Qinghua porcelain. Through large
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| Qinghua jar with lid and floral spread decorations. Hongwu period, Ming Dynasty. | amounts of material evidence and records of history, it was further confirmed that from the 13th to mid-lYh century, there were merchants, monks and missionaries from Persia, Syria and other places, who traversed the land and sea Silk Routes and brought to China all kinds of trade goods, handicrafts, spices and cobalt blue, a coloring produced in Islamic nations. In return, they brought back to their own countries Qinghua porcelain as well as other Chinese handicraft goods.
The principal port of China at the time was Quanzhou, a gathering place for wealthy Muslim merchants. They purchased Qinghua porcelain in mass quantities and resold them to Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Italy, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania and others countries. As a result, Jingdezhen's artisans not only received the coloring agent from which spurred Yuan Dynasty Qinghua, they also had a market so big that they never imagined possible. Fine china ware became the symbol of China, spread along the land and maritime Silk Routes to other corners of the world in all directions. It is easy to see the infldences it had on porcelain manufacturing in other countries of the world.
Since Yuan Qinghua was heavily targeted at export, there are many examples of such export ware still preserved in other countries today. In preliminary count, there are more than 300
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| Qinghua Yuhuchun vase with design of mandarin ducks frolicking in water. Yuan Dynasty. | specimens of Yuan Qinghua in existence today, preserved both
in China and in overseas countries. The overseas pieces add up to about 110, mainly housed in Turkey, Iran and so forth; Chinese domestic collections are around 200 pieces, mostly archeological findings around China after 1949. These domestic pieces are mostly parts of the collections at Beijing Palace Museum, Beijing Capital Museum, Shanghai museum and others.
In the Ardebil Shrine of Iran, great collection of Chinese porcelain can be found. Aside from Longquan celadon of the Southern Song and Yuan Dynasties, white porcelain of southern China, imperial porcelain of the Privy Council and blue glazed porcelain of the Yuan Dynasty, there is another 37 valuable pieces of Qinghua from the Yuan Dynasty. In the northwestern part of Iran, among the collections of the Azerbaijan Museum in Tabriz, are also Qinghua porcelain and underglazed red porcelain. Among which are large Qinghua dishes, Meiping vases and bowls of the late Ming Dynasty, all are fine specimens of extraordinary splendor. In Istanbul, Turkey, an internationally renowned museum is well known to house large collections of Chinese porcelain.
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| Qinghua Meiping vase with lid and peony scroll patterns. Yuan Dynasty. Collection of the Ge Family Tianminlou Foundation of Hong Kong. | Furthermore, more Qinghua porcelain vessels or fragments were found in places such as Fustat in Egypt, along the Red Sea in Sudan, on the Island of Barain in the Persian Gulf, and East African countries such as Somali, Kenya, Tanzania and so on. In recent years, more Yuan Dynasty Qinghua was discovered in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Especially in the Philippines, large jars and bowls were discovered, such as Qinghua jars with quadruple handles sporting the double dragon motif.
These Qinghua porcelains contain designs of flowers and birds, birds and wild animals, flowers and herbage, floral scrolls and geometric designs and so on. They were quite different from the early Qinghua wares seen in Japan. One of which was a small jar with double handles with Chrysanthemum image; its form and decorative images was exactly the same as porcelain uncovered from Yahutian Kilns in Jingdezhen, which belonged to the products of late-Yuan Dynasty. Later, when the imperial ambassador (eunuch) Zheng He sailed seven times on long journeys west, not only were maritime trade routes established between Cha and other countries, he also brought great quantifies of magnificent Qinghua porcelain to these far away lands.
Even though the production of Qinghua porcelain in the Yuan Dynasty was already a success, due to limited historical records, evidences that could give affirmative dating were lacking. Thus there was a few hundred years of uncertain history and understanding for the art of Qinghua
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| Qinghua vase with white dragon in seawater design. Imperial Family kiln of Jingdezhen. Xuande period, Ming Dynasty. | porcelain. Even as recent as half a century ago, the existence of Yuan Dynasty Qinghua in China was still a topic of debate.
The story of the discovery of Yuan Dynasty Qinghua began with one such work that found its way to Britain. Around the 20's to the 30's of the twentieth century, British man R.L. Hobson first disclosed the fact that among the Chinese Qinghua porcelain collections of the Percival David Foundation was a pair of identical vases with duo elephant-shaped handles, decorated with the image of the dragon and phoenix. The vases were 63.6 cm tall, with motifs including chrysanthemums scroll patterns, palm leaves, lotuses scroll motifs, flying phoenix, heavenly dragon swimming in the seas motif, peony scroll motifs, miscellaneous treasures and lotus petal patterns, layer after layer.
The neck of the vases had a lengthy inscription written in Qinghua coloring, describing the exact time and place that the vessel was bestowed as a gift of good luck and the people involved in the process. The date marked was of the 11t" year of the Zhizheng period (1351 A.D.), which was under the reign of the last Yuan Emperor, Huizong. Before the Yuan Dynasty, Chinese porcelain did not have the custom of marking the year and place of production on porcelain ware.
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| Qinghua dish with floral and fruit spread patterns on Yellow ground. Zhengde period, Ming Dynasty.Collection of the Palace Museum. | Therefore, the discovery of such a special piece of Qinghua held unprecedented importance; it was the first time that people of the world were aware of Yuan Dynasty Qinghua porcelain, made in Jingdezhen.
The report by Hobson was overly simple and lacked convincing evidence, thus it id not gain the attention of the academic world. It was not until the 50's of the twentieth century, when American scholar Dr. Popper took this
matter seriously and began verification research. With the pair of Qinghua vases as standard, he compared them to other Chinese Qinghua porcelain in Iranian and Turkish museums. Subsequently, Qinghua porcelain with similar features as the standard pair were classified as Zhizheng Qinghua, named for their time of make. With further verification of the authenticity of the standard vessels, supported by
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| Club-shaped Qinghua vase with figure, frontal and rear views. Commoner's kiln. Kangxi period, Qing Dynasty. Collection of the Palace Museum. | newer archeological findings, only then did Chinese Yuan Dynasty Qinghua gain the recognition of the people.
Zhizheng Qinghua had the following general features: large sizes, stately and
powerful form; brightly colored Qinghua imagery, with running ink effect; containing
iron rust marks; glaze was often blue-white or egg-white color; rich subject matter in decorative imagery; and complex layout of decorative patterns, with a sense of layers. In all these unique features, the most characteristic of the gracefulness of Yuan Qinghua would be its distinctive form and the cobalt blue Qinghua imagery, the decorative motifs and subject matter.
Zhizheng Qinghua came in mostly large-sized vessels, with characteristic objects such as the Meiping vase, the slim-necked and broad bellied vase, handled-pots, goblet, large jars, large dish and so on. Its target consumer group was the Islamic countries in West Asia. Therefore, its decorative patterns and techniques as well as the shape and form of the vessels were
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| Qinghua dish with image of elegant ladies. Kangxi period, Qing Dynasty. Collection of the Palace Museum. | all quite distinctive. The large dishes were usually bevel-lipped, with round or polygonal mouths. In the Qinghua collections of Turkey and Iran, as well as artifacts unearthed from India, large dishes represented a big portion of these collections. These large dishes had round or polygonal shapes.
The ones with polygonal mouths were around 45 cm in diameter; the larger ones can reach 57 cm or more and very few pieces were below 40 cm in diameter. Those with round mouths had diameters usually around 40 cm; few reached 45 cm and higher. This type of large dishes is the most common type of Yuan Qinghua in existence today. However, within China, only a few museums including the Palace Museum in Beijing and the Shanghai Museum have the large dish in their collection, while most specimens of large Qinghua dishes are in West Asian countries. It was said that the large dishes were custom made for the people in these regions who sat on the floor and ate hand-served foods from the vessel.
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| Qinghua vase with cloud and dragon motif and dual elephant-shaped handles. Yuan Dynasty. Collection of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, University of London, U.K. | There is also a type of large-sized bo, or flat bowls, most often found in West Asia. It has a flare lip or straight lip design that measures 35 to 40 cm in diameters. Some smaller ones can be 25-30 cm, while the largest ones measure in at 58 cm or more. The large jar is also another type of Qinghua vessel that survived until today in plentiful quantities, and is mostly found in Japan. Furthermore, the flat kettle which has a really particular style, are found mostly in the Middle East, except for one piece at the former Yuan Capital in China. As for Meiping vases, six pieces
were discovered at the Gao'an kiln in Jiangxi all at once. This discovery gave evidence that this was a type of vessel used both domestically and for export markets. The goblet was first created in the Yuan Dynasty.
It was made to better serve the nomadic life of the Mongolians, thus it was rarely found in other countries and intended mostly for domestic use. As for now, very few typical household Qinghua wares have been discovered in China, such as bowls and plates and so on. The export of large quantities of Yuan Qinghua played a major role in promoting cultural exchange between China and other countries, among which, Turkey, Iran and Vietnam produced the best quality imitation ware of Jingdezhen Qinghua porcelain. Each of the countries' imitation ware possessed its respective national styling, and all are testimonies of the history when Chinese and foreign cultures came together.
Yuan Dynasty Qinghua adopted the use of imported cobalt coloring, which consisted of low concentrations of manganese and high iron content, as well as small traces of sulfur and arsenic,
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| Unearthed large Qinghua crock with dragon motifs. Both belly depth and diameter of around 70 cm. Imperial Family kiln of Jingdezhen. Jiajing period, Ming Dynasty. | and no traces of uranium and nickel. On the surface, at the parts where the Qinghua blue was concentrated, there would be black speckles that sunk into the body. These iron specks would appear on the glaze and result in an uneven surface; it was the most distinguishable feature of the Yuan Qinghua and was never to be replicated in later generations. The colors of Yuan Dynasty Qinghua included dark blue, bright blue and violet-blue, which were pure, intense and heavy, with a special kind of ink-washed effect, as if a Chinese ink and wash painting.
The choices of subject matter for the decorative images were often dragon and phoenix, Kylin, peony, floral scrolls as well as scenes of legends and romantic takes on history; such stories included "Thrice Visiting the Thatched Cottage," "Lady Zhao Leaving the Frontier" and so on. No export Qinghua ware was absent of full bodied decorations as well as paintings and illustrations, which were all initially provided with sample drawings by the Mongol government's art offices. The painters and illustrators followed the illustrated guides and paid meticulous attention to the art works, which made many Yuan Qinghua wares in a class of their own.
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| Qinghua teapot with floral motifs on decorative window. Daoguang period, Qing Dynasty. |
In the summer of 2005, the Christie's Auction House of London held an auction. A piece of Yuan Dynasty Qinghua jar with painted figures, owned by the Dutch Van
Hemert family for over 90 years, was sold for the record-breaking price of 14 million
British Pounds (equivalent of 230 million Chinese Yuan), it was the most expensive
Chinese porcelain ever auctioned. The beautifully painted scene on this piece of
Qinghua jar seemed to come to life. The main character Guiguzi was depicted sitting in a dual-wheeled carriage hauled by a lion and a tiger; behind them were two horse riders, one of which wore the uniform of a military officer. The officer carried a flag with the Chinese characters Guigu. The story told took place during the Warring States Period in China, when the nation of Yan was at war with the nation of Qi. The Yan army had captured the disciple of Guiguzi who fought for the Qi army, thus he was accompanied by his army, going to the rescue of his beloved student.
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| Qinghua Buddhist hat-shaped pot with Tibetan inscriptions. Xuande period, Ming Dynasty. Collection of the Norbulingka Monastery in Tibst, China. | Yuan Dynasty Qinghua was mainly intended for the overseas markets. It did not
capture the interests of the literati and high officials in China. The Yuan court set up Fuliang Porcelain Office at Jingdezhen to produce porcelain solely for the court, favored the Luanbai, or egg white porcelain, made by Jingdezhen. This kind of single-color glazed porcelain continued the traditionally high aesthetic ideals of the Chinese literati, praising clean and simplicity as the most elegant beauty.
However, changes started to take place in the Ming Dynasty. The culture of the
city people awakened as Chinese opera and novels appeared. This changed the
aesthetic preferences of the Chinese. Qinghua porcelain, sporting white backgrounds and blue paintings, was not only a beautiful ornamentation in the homes, it can be produced with paintings of figures, landscapes, and birds and flowers; even scenes from popular operas and novels. Its ability to express and entertain was something single-colored porcelain with one layer of glaze could not accomplish. As a result, Qinghua porcelain gained recognition at home in addition to its fame overseas. The Ming rulers established a special imperial kiln at Jingdezhen to make porcelain specifically for the royal family members. The Qinghua soon became the mainstream product for all Imperial kilns.
During the Yongle (1403-1424 A.D.) and Xuande (1426-1435 A.D.) periods in early-Ming Dynasty, the bodies and glazes produced by the Imperial kilns were much moreimproved from before. The body was fine and white with a touch of pale blue-green;the glaze was thick and full-bodied, glistening with shine; and the Qinghua's blue color was intense. Those were the common features of porcelain in this time period.
By mid-Ming, the artisans of Jingdezhen transferred Chinese ink painting created by the literati directly onto the bodies of porcelain as decoration. This act largely enriched Qinghua porcelain's forms of expression. Since Qinghua porcelain uses underglaze painting, the images were directly applied onto the unfired and water absorbent clay body. This way, the true meaning of a literati painting -- the ink-wash effect was fully realized. Before this, only decorative patterns were used to enrich porcelain ware.
Now that painting on porcelain was available, many wares were grazed by portraitures that were called "the transcendent ones." These were people depicted in the paintings showing their transcendental characters by either walking amidst high mountains and clouds, or feeling at ease and content. Such an attitude towards life appealed to the literati and the recluse. These paintings were usually rather impressionistic and did not focus on accuracy of shape and form. A few strokes and curves may constitute the image of a figure, with certain highlighted spots that brought out the essentials of the image. Sometimes these figures were blended in with the background, thus the man and nature became one.
In addition, aside from paintings depicting lives of the literati and recluse, there were also many images of immortals and Daoists, who appeared more expressive and dominating. In the paintings'backgrounds, one can find images of traditional Chinese buildings or landscape,shrouded in heavenly aura. The main differences between portraiture found on mid-Ming Dynasty porcelain and those of the Yuan Dynasty were in both style and subject matter. Earlier Yuan Qinghua had illustrations that were very much influenced by prints which had a stringent type of brush work. Subject matter-wise, Yuan Qinghua illustrations took its themes from stories of Yuan drama or novels, with a strong sense of plot and were suitable for the common people. On the other hand, Qinghua portraitures and paintings during the mid-Ming were influenced by the literati style. Its subject matters told of the lifestyles of the literati and Daoists in a stylish and free manner, with a high sense of transcendence sought by the literati.
The quality of Qinghua porcelain, from the Ming to the Qing Dynasty, has reached a new height in the time of Emperor Kangxi (1662-1722 A.D.). The typical Qinghua porcelain used blue coloring of mostly domestic origins form Zhejiang Province. Since Qinghua adopted the new technique of calcination, it had very bright colors and the feeling of jade. In the mid Ming Dynasty, the older technique could only produce a dark and a light color. However, by the Kangxi period, in order to show smooth transitions from darks to lights, five shades in the coloring material were created. The pigments would be placed in individual bowls and used separately and never mixed.
According to the needs during the painting process, the separate shades were applied to the appropriate areas of lights and darks. For this special feature, the Kangxi Qinghua was also known as Qinghua Wucai, literally "Qinghua in five colors," technically implying multiple colors.
However, by the end of Kangxi's reign during the Qing Dynasty, with developments in Wucai porcelain, and the Fencai porcelain which followed during Yongzheng's reign, Qinghua porcelain production began to thin out from Imperial kilns. However, among the masses, Qinghua porcelain was there to stay. Its speediness in production, rich decorative methods and refreshing colors gave it long-lasting favors from the people. Until this very day, Qinghua porcelain is still an important object in porcelain for daily use. |
