Jingdezhen porcelain

Jingdezhen porcelain (Chinese: 景德镇陶瓷) is Chinese porcelain produced in or near Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province in southern China. Jingdezhen may have produced pottery as early as the sixth century CE, though it is named after the reign name of Emperor Zhenzong, in whose reign it became a major kiln site, around 1004. By the 14th century it had become the largest centre of production of Chinese porcelain, which it has remained, increasing its dominance in subsequent centuries. From the Ming period onwards, official kilns in Jingdezhen were controlled by the emperor, making imperial porcelain in large quantity for the court and the emperor to give as gifts.

Although apparently an unpromising location for potteries, being a remote town in a hilly region, Jingdezhen is close to the best quality deposits of petuntse, more contemporarily called pottery stone in China, as well as being surrounded by forests, mostly of pine, providing wood for the kilns. It also has a river leading to river systems flowing north and south, facilitating transport of fragile wares. The imperial kilns were in the centre of the city at Zhushan (Pearl Hill), with many other kilns four kilometres away at Hutian.

It has produced a great variety of pottery and porcelain, for the Chinese market and as Chinese export porcelain, but its best-known high quality porcelain wares have been successively Qingbai ware in the Song and Yuan dynasties, blue and white porcelain from the 1330s, and the "famille rose" and other "famille" colours under the Qing dynasty.

The Mongol Yuan dynasty established a body, the "Fuliang Porcelain Bureau" to regulate production, and the next Ming dynasty established official kilns to produce porcelain for the emperor; Jingdezhen continued to produce Imperial porcelain until the end of Imperial rule. The imperial kilns were situated at Pearl Hill (Zhushan) in Jingdezhen; some scholars give a date of 1369 for the commencement of production. But there continued to be many other kilns, producing wares for many distinct markets.

The imperial court, except during periods of crisis, generated a huge demand for porcelain. Apart from the vast main palaces and other residences, for much of the period the many princes had subsidiary regional courts. There were imperial temples to be supplied, each of which was given monochrome wares in different colours, as well as several monasteries and shrines. The porcelain to which different ranks of the imperial household were entitled were set out in minute detail in regulations. The final version of these, from 1899, specified that the Empress Dowager Cixi was allowed 821 pieces of yellow porcelain, while the Empress had 1,014. A concubine of the first rank had 121 pieces of yellow with a white interior, but those of the second rank had yellow decorated with green dragons.

The Ming dynasty is normally dated as beginning in 1368, but there was a long revolt against the Yuan dynasty, and Jingdezhen was lost by them in 1352. By 1402 there were twelve imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, then one of three areas with imperial kilns. Production was controlled by a ministry in the capital, by then in Beijing, far to the north. Production was on a huge scale, employing hundreds if not thousands of workers, whose tasks were divided into several specialities to increase efficiency and consistency. In 1433 a single order from the palace was for 443,500 pieces of porcelain, all with dragon and phoenix designs. Court artists were by now supplying drawn or woodblock printed designs from the capital. These enormous quantities were distributed by the palace to the subsidiary courts of the many Ming princes sent to govern provinces, as well as being presented as gifts to other notables, and sent abroad as diplomatic gifts. Some may also have been sold, especially for export. Sometimes antique pieces in the Imperial collection were sent to Jingdezhen to be copied.

A recently excavated Ming princely burial has yielded the first example to survive until modern times of a type of gaiwan set known from 15th-century paintings. There is a blue and white Jingdezhen stem cup, that has a silver stand and a gold cover (this dated 1437), all decorated with dragons. Presumably many such sets existed, but recycling the precious metal elements was too tempting at some point, leaving only the porcelain cups. Other imperial porcelains may have carried gilding, which has now worn away.

Under the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–24), reign marks were introduced for the first time, applied to porcelain and other types of luxury products made for the imperial court. The supremacy of Jingdezhen was reinforced in the mid-15th century when the imperial kilns producing Longquan celadon, for centuries one of China's finest wares, were closed after celadons fell from fashion. Apart from the much smaller production of monochrome stoneware "official Jun" wares from Henan, used in the palace for flowerpots and the like, Jingdezhen was now the only area making imperial ceramics.