Canton or Cantonese porcelain is the characteristic style of

ceramic ware Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and porc ...

decorated in

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

, the capital of

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

and ( prior to 1842) the sole legal port for export of Chinese goods to Europe. As such, it was one of the major forms of exportware produced in China in the 18th and 20th centuries.

History

Typically, the exportware was made, glazed, and fired at

Jingdezhen Jingdezhen is a prefecture-level city, in northeastern Jiangxi province, with a total population of 1,669,057 (2018), bordering Anhui to the north. It is known as the "Porcelain Capital" because it has been producing Chinese ceramics for at leas ...

but decorated with enamels in Guangzhou (then usually romanized as Canton) for export to the west via the

Thirteen Factories The Thirteen Factories, also known as the , was a neighbourhood along the Pearl River in southwestern Guangzhou (Canton) in the Qing Empire from to 1856 around modern day Xiguan, in Guangzhou's Liwan District. These warehouses and stores were ...

of the

Canton System The Canton System (1757–1842; zh, t=一口通商, p=Yīkǒu tōngshāng, "Single orttrading relations") served as a means for Qing China to control trade with the West within its own country by focusing all trade on the southern port of C ...

. Canton ''

famille rose Famille rose (French for "pink family") is a type of Chinese porcelain introduced in the 18th century and defined by the presence of pink colour overglaze enamel. It is a Western classification for Qing dynasty porcelain known in Chinese by va ...

'' in the 19th century was typically decorated with figures and

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s and

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s, predominantly in

pink Pink is the color of a namesake flower that is a pale tint of red. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, politeness, ...

and

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...

. The decorative ''famille rose'' patterns used in export wares may be given names: Rose Canton which is decorated with flowers, birds and insects but with no human figures; Rose Mandarin with human figures as the main subject and introduced in the late 18th century; and Rose Medallion which has different panels that may be of different subjects and introduced in the 19th century.

References

External links

Paintings of the Traditional Porcelain ProcessDerek Philip Au
Several series of paintings, with links to sources.
Trading China
Google Arts and Culture presentation of

Hong Kong Maritime Museum Hong Kong Maritime Museum is a non-profit educational institution funded by the international shipping community and the government in Hong Kong. It is located at Central Pier 8, Hong Kong. The museum was established on 8 September in 2005 and ...

albums. Chinese porcelain Cantonese folk art History of Guangzhou {{China-hist-stub

History

See also

References

External links