image: Xuande blue-and-white porcelain excavated in Jingdezhen, China. view more
Credit: Image courtesy of the Jingdezhen Institute of Ceramic Archaeology.
Blue pigment in Chinese porcelain reveals signs of international trade, according to a study. Blue-and-white porcelain made in Jingdezhen, China during the Yuan and Ming dynasties is associated with imported cobalt pigment. However, it is unclear whether a pigment color imported from the Middle East known as Sumali blue was used throughout the Xuande Period of the Ming dynasty, or if it was superseded by domestic asbolane ores. Pigment during and after 1426 CE exhibits high levels of manganese, similar to domestic ores, whereas imported pigment does not contain manganese. Jianfeng Cui, Dashu Qin, and colleagues used electron microscopy to analyze blue-and-white porcelain sherds from the Xuande reign and compared them with those from the Yuan and Qing dynasties. The authors detected two types of residual pigment particles in the Xuande sherds that differed in chemical composition, distribution behavior, and morphology. This finding indicates a mixture of domestic and imported pigment in Xuande sherds that was not present in Yuan or Qing dynasty sherds. Blue pigment may have been consistently imported throughout the Xuande period, and an international trading network was established by the 15th century, according to the authors.
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Article #19-16630: "Early globalized industrial chain revealed by residual submicron pigment particles in Chinese imperial blue-and-white porcelains," by Xiaochenyang Jiang et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Jianfeng Cui, Peking University, Beijing, CHINA; tel: +86-13671366444; email: <cuijianfeng@pku.edu.cn>
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences