This excellent little volume is 'must reading' for anyone interested in Chinese ceramics for it tells the actual story of China's most famous ceramic centre, Jingdezhen, from its first known ceramist (a man named Tao Yu during the Tang Dynasty, 618-907) to today. It is a tale worth knowing for in all the years I've been studying Chinese ceramics never before had I given thought to the actual town. And the tale is told so well, with so many interesting details and facts, that I have just started to read it for a second time.

The earliest known Jingdezhen porcelain (what the town is most known for although its earliest pieces were stoneware) came out of a Song dynasty tomb dated to 1000 (p. 12) so as the author notes, JDZ (as most ceramic scholars refer to the site) was actually one of the later ceramic centres of China. Its name, which I would wager, most collectors don't know, was given it by the Emperor Zhenzong, who ordered that the town, originally called Changnanzhen ('the town south of the Chang River') be renamed Jingdezhen ('the town of the Jingde [emperor]') as Jingde was the official reign name he used from 1004-1007.

From here Gillette covers not only the growth and ups and downs of the town's history but also stories of its inhabitants past and present, and some of the less obvious facts of ceramics-making. Most ceramic lovers know that during the tumultuous years at the end of the Ming Dynasty and launch of its successor by the Manchus, the Qing, the area was devastated, its kilns destroyed and its potters fleeing into the hills. The town came into its own again when the Emperor Kangxi (around 1683) assigned a new administrator to oversee its redevelopment, but who knew JDZ suffered several periods in its history when not only wars but also politics almost destroyed it--right up into the 21st century.

Gillette travelled throughout the region for years, collecting bits of history, stories, and knowledge which she shares with readers--even some of the tricks of JDZ's modern-day replica fraudsters (how to artificially age pots, for example--using citric acid, dye, traditional Chinese medicine, shoe polish, and tea...p. 107).

I have to correct one tiny error, however, or perhaps it was just a bit of poor writing or editing. On page 78 Gillette writes, “China Wind [a factory] boasted a state-of-the-art facility and introduced a revolutionary practise to Jingdezhen [in 1987]: bisque firing. Throughout Jingdezhen’s history, porcelain had been thrown, trimmed, decorated, and then fired once (sometimes called raw firing). In China Wind, porcelain would be thrown, trimmed, and fired to become a ‘bisque’ or ‘biscuit’ and then decorated and refired….” This just can't be true. Doucai wares, and in fact all porcelains that are decorated in overglaze enamels, have to be fired at least twice. First, the blue cobalt outline lines are applied to the pot, then a clear glaze applied, then the pot fired at a high porcelain-producing temperature, then when cooled, the enamels are applied and the pot refired at the necessary lower temperature. One can't get both porcelain and enamelware on the same pot without two separate firings--the first being a temperature high enough to achieve the transformation of the clay into porcelain; then the 2nd lower firing to 'set' the enamels.

I'm off to JDZ this autumn and this book is travelling with me. ( )