Miaoli ceramics

Body#

Iron-rich local clay that fires hard and dense at high temperature; the iron kept early Miaoli ware out of fine porcelain.¹

Methods#

1. Climbing kiln (登窯) Japanese-introduced, multi-chamber and semi-downdraft; it fires hotter and more evenly than a snake kiln and suits Miaoli's high-firing clay. One article says it was also called 目仔窯 and burned acacia wood (相思木).³
2. Climbing kiln, scale About 11 to 13 chambers, wood-fired to about 1200 °C over about two weeks per firing.⁴
3. Other kilns Snake kiln (蛇窯, from the Chinese mainland tradition), square downdraft kiln (四方窯), the small 包仔窯 (called Taiwan's earliest kiln type), then tunnel and shuttle kilns. The paper says Miaoli has the widest range of kiln types in Taiwan.²
4. Forming Two lines: Japanese wheel throwing and Fuzhou slab building; slip casting dominated the later export trade.¹

With tea#

• Teapots (茶壺) are listed among the earliest Miaoli products, with flowerpots, grinding bowls, basins, jars and bottles.¹
• Tea sets were among the export decorative ceramics of the 1970s and 1980s.¹
• A wood-fired climbing kiln in Tongluo, the 漢寶窯, made tea wares as well as vases and daily ware; see Taiwanese wood firing.²

Periods#

1. 1897 – 1945Japanese rule. A Japanese potter, Iwamoto Tōsaku (岩本東作), found clay at Xishan and later built a climbing kiln at Dakeng, Gongguan. Two sources disagree on his background (an ex-soldier who had worked at Tokoname, or a Niigata businessman). Natural gas was first used as kiln fuel around 1926–27.¹
2. 1897 – 1945Same start year in an academic paper, which also names a second Japanese-era line, the 拓南窯業 company of 1942, using square kilns (四方窯) and machine production.²
3. 1945 – 1970sMiaoli became a main source of wine jars for the state monopoly (from 1948) and of jars for hydrochloric acid.³
4. 1970 – c. 1990Export decorative ceramics, mostly slip cast: figurines, vases, lamps and tea sets. About 300 factories opened in a few years around 1974; exports peaked in 1988, and production moved abroad after 1990.¹
5. 1970 – late 1980sThe museum-side account dates the decorative-ceramics industry from 1970, its maturity to about 1974 and the move of production to South-East Asia and China from the late 1980s.⁴

Kiln sites#

Heritage listings#

Related#