Difference between polychrome export porcelain from Jingdezhen and Canton

Started by peterp, Feb 24, 2020, 12:28:19

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peterp

* This concerns fencai wares made at Jingdezhen and polychrome wares painted in the export factories in Canton.

Both, Jingdezhen and Canton made porcelain for export, however, the colors/enamels used in Canton are not found on domestic Chinese porcelain, only on export porcelain.
In Chinese the polychrome colors used in Jingdezhen are also called "soft colors", while those used in Canton are called "hard colors".  Soft enamel colors used at Jingdezhen are called 'fencai', which means powder colors. Fencai colors were first used in the Kangxi reign, slowly replacing so called 'wucai' colors, which were also "hard colors".

-- "Hard colors" are colors that do not have the ability to display softer or lighter hues of the same color. For example, if something is red, it is uniformly red, with about the same color intensity.
-- "Soft colors" on the other hand are colors that enabled the painting of lighter hues and color tones of the same color.

Fencai colors are called 'powder colors' because apart from the mineral color pigments they had added glass powder, which allowed toning down color hues. The older wucai colors did not have this.
Canton enamels apparently were imported directly from abroad into the foreign factories in Canton, where export porcelain was painted. These enamels had been prepared in a way that the colors did not change during the firing. Color intensity remained mostly the same.