10 - Material Circulations in the Sixteenth Century

Summary

This chapter brings together several objects that demonstrate the reach of Jingdezhen’s ceramics, and shows the ways in which local producers of porcelain connected to consumers distributed throughout the empire and far beyond. Drawing on a shared set of raw resources and skills, workers throughout the wider network of Jingdezhen's production could easily adjust the quality of the goods they produced. By using more refined clay, higher quality cobalt, or more skilled painters, the quality could be more easily guaranteed; by using less carefully prepared clays, more diluted cobalt, less well-trained craftsmen, or by firing the goods in more densely-packed kilns, one could save on expenses and produce lower quality goods. While the manufacturers catered to the demands of different consumers and diverse markets, they were able to create both cohesion and diversity. The focus on a single design element, the motif of deer set in a natural landscape, demonstrates both a visual coherence that suggests interaction and adaptation that suggests a constant process of translation and transformation.