Jingdezhen porcelain
Traditional 景德鎮瓷
Porcelain from Jingdezhen in northeastern Jiangxi, made since the Five Dynasties, with imperial kilns at Zhushan under the Ming and Qing.
On this page
Forms, use and context#
Its handmade porcelain craft was in the first national heritage batch (2006). Two kiln sites are nationally protected: Hutian (1982) and the imperial kiln factory (2006). For tea it supplies porcelain cups, gaiwan and bowls.
Body#
Porcelain stone plus kaolin, the 'two-element' recipe the heritage record dates to the Yuan.1
Methods#
- Forming and firing Wheel throwing; kiln stacking methods include saggars, stacked bowls and ring stacking.1
Look through the wall of a rice-grain porcelain cup towards a light. The small translucent windows mark places where the potter cut openings in the unfired body and filled them with glaze. A Jingdezhen cup and saucer in Amsterdam each carry five rosettes worked in this way.567
Typical objects#
A blue-and-white Jingdezhen ewer in the K. S. Lo Collection has two different kinds of dating evidence. Its six-character Xuande reign mark sits inside a double ring on the base. The catalogue dates the ewer to the Xuande reign (1426–35) and identifies its domed lid as a replacement.8
Periods#
- Five Dynasties – presentPorcelain since the Five Dynasties; imperial kilns at Zhushan in the Ming and Qing.1
Kiln sites#
Heritage listings#
2006
China national intangible cultural heritage list (国家级非物质文化遗产代表性项目名录), traditional crafts1
- Item
- Ⅷ-7 (序号 357)
- Batch
- first
景德镇手工制瓷技艺, declared by Jingdezhen.
1982
Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level (全国重点文物保护单位)2
- Item
- 2-53
- Site
- 湖田古瓷窑址 Hutian kiln site
- Batch
- second
- Era as listed
- Five Dynasties to Ming (per the city's ceramics gazetteer)
Provincial protection 1959, national 1982; designation 2-53 from enwiki-mhcs-jiangxi.
2006
Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level (全国重点文物保护单位)3
- Item
- Ⅰ-103
- Site
- 御窑厂窑址 Imperial kiln factory site
- Batch
- sixth
- Era as listed
- 明至清 (Ming to Qing), 江西省景德镇市
Sources#
- 景德镇手工制瓷技艺 — 357 / Ⅷ-7 (2006) ↗
- 《景德镇市瓷业志》第十一篇第三章 古瓷窑遗址 (PDF) ↗
- 国务院关于核定并公布第六批全国重点文物保护单位的通知（国发〔2006〕19号） ↗
- List of Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Jiangxi ↗
- 徐京红，《经典茶具210问》 (2016) · 058 · PDF 108–109.
- Wadsworth Atheneum · 1920.629
- Rijksmuseum · AK-RBK-14786-B
- Hong Kong Museum of Art, Chinese Ceramic Tea Vessels: The K.S. Lo Collection, Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware (1991) · 85 · C81.136 · p. 196 (PDF 466).
Status and editorial notes draft
Sources are listed below. Their presence does not certify every claim; source-specific interpretations and unresolved questions are identified in the text. This page has not received independent expert approval.
- link gaiwan and cup terms once shape ids exist; no tea object is named in the sources read
- Draft: written 2026-11-02 from the sources listed, all read on that date. Region id is proposed; no region entries exist in teaware data yet, and cha.fyi's region ids were not checked from this thread. Tea use in the summary is general context, not yet backed by a source read here: Not yet verified find a museum source on Jingdezhen tea wares.
- Not yet verified: Draft: written 2026-11-02 from the sources listed, all read on that date. Region id is proposed; no region entries exist in teaware data yet, and cha.fyi's region ids were not checked from this thread. Tea use in the summary is general context, not yet backed by a source read here: Not yet verified find a museum source on Jingdezhen tea wares.