11 - Local and Global in Jingdezhen’s Long Seventeenth Century

Summary

This chapter looks at Jingdezhen from the perspective of developments in the eighteenth century. This confirms some of the long continuities that have characterised the porcelain manufactures in Jingdezhen. Quantities of production mattered, as did the quality of what was produced, in the Song dynasty as it did in the Qing. Artisans moved between different sites of production, and so did the objects themselves, providing the inspiration for change, innovation and transformation. But that mobility and fluidity posed challenges for those in charge, and the written documentation created by those in power often served the attempt to order spaces, assert meaning onto those spaces, and regulate activity. Of course, continuity is not the only way to characterise what happened in Jingdezhen; far too much changed throughout the centuries, in terms of the spaces, the skills, the technologies, and the objects; their meanings were recreated constantly. By applying both local and global lenses to the exploration of these continuities and changing meanings, this chapter situates this city of blue and white in the early modern world.