Preliminary Study On The Blue-and-white Porcelain Of Qing Dynasty Stored Up By Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum

This thesis makes a preliminary and systematic study on some of blue-and-white porcelain of Qing dynasty stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum. This thesis includes 8 parts.Preface mainly makes an account of the present situation of study on blue-and-white porcelain and the situation of study on blue-and-white porcelain of Qing dynasty stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum; and the purpose and meaning of the thesis. At present, the study on blue-and-white porcelain mainly involves: 1. research on development history of blue-and-white porcelain; 2. study on blue-and-white porcelain of different periods; 3. thematic study on blue-and-white porcelain. The porcelain stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum is usually not open to public, so people know little about them and relating research articles are hardly found published except album Porcelain Volume of Finest Cultural Relics Stored by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum. Seizes this chance, through going to Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum to collect information by myself, and combining with existing study results, this thesis makes a preliminary and systematic study on the 56 representative pieces of blue-and-white porcelain of Qing dynasty stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum in the album, aimed to give a good display of blue-and-white porcelain of Qing dynasty stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum being an vital part of porcelain produced by royal kiln plant in Jingde Town of Qing dynasty and ancient artistic treasures, revealing the great achievements achieved by traditional porcelain making industry represented by porcelain ware made in government porcelain kiln in Jingde Town in Qing Dynasty, meanwhile, I hope I can fill in the gap of study on blue-and-white porcelain of Qing dynasty stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum and provide basis and literature documentation for further research.Article one: Overview of Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum and Blue-and-white Porcelain of Qing Dynasty Stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum. It gives a general account of Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum and blue-and-white porcelain of Qing dynasty stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum. Shenyang Imperial Palace (Shenjing Imperial Palace), located at No. 171, Shenyang Road, Shenhe District, Shenyang City, was began to be constructed in 1625 (the tenth year in Tianming of Later Jin) and completed in 1636 (the first year of Chongde of Qing dynasty). It was built addition and expansion in Qinglong period for the need of staying temporarily during"patrol eastward"and storing remains from the previous dynasty. It covers an area of over 60000 square meters, with a building area of over 10000 square meters, over 90 buildings of different styles and more than 300 rooms. Shenyang Imperial Palace was the center of Qing Dynasty's rule in Northeast before it's establishing in the central plains of China. After the founding of new China, Shenyang Imperial Palace Display Office was established in 1949, was renamed as Shenyang Imperial Palace Display Hall in 1954 and was renamed as Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum in Aug. 1986, it was among the first key historical sites under state protection announced by the Department of State in Jun. 1961. The total number of porcelain stored at present is more than 3000, most of them are porcelain wares made in government porcelain kilns of Qing, Ming dynasties, and most of them are the original collection of palace of Qing dynasty, according to resource, of which, there are over four hundred pieces of blue-and-white porcelain of Qing dynasty, containing a wide variety of blue and white with copper red colors and blue and white with colored glaze besides monochromatic blue-and-white porcelain, blue and white with copper red colors, blue and white with colored glaze, some of them are also superior among similar wares.Article two: Classification of Blue-and-white Porcelain in Shape. Blue-and-white porcelain of Qing dynasty stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum is varied in shapes. The blue-and-white porcelain mentioned in this thesis are in 16 different f shapes including bottle, bowl, plate, box, cup, Zun (wine vessel), pot, basin, can, brush pot, jar, saucer, goblet, stemmed bowl, Jue (ancient wine holder with 3 legs and loop handle) and He (ancient utensil). Of which, bottle according to different shapes varies as vault-of-heaven vase, award vase, pear-shaped bottle, bulbous lipped vase, gallbladder-shaped vase, long-necked bottle with flat belly, straight neck bottle, club-shaped vase, plum vase, vase with tubular handles, vase with double animal ears, cong-style bottle, six-rowed bottle and pilgerflasche vase. Based on the overall shape and abdominal wall, bowl varies as bulging-belt pot, shallow bowl, deep bowl, Tun-shaped bowl, long-leg bowl, bowl with lid. Plate, according to different shapes, can be divided into round mouth tray and plate with fancy mouth. Box, according to different shapes, is divided into seal box and holding box. Cup, according to different shapes, is divided into bell-shaped bowl and small bowl. Zun, according to shapes, it can be divided into two kinds, radish Zun and two-handled Zun; pot is ewer style; basin is begonia-type; can is the one with lid similar to temple jar; brush pot is straight; jar is in melon shape; stemmed bowl is with high ring foot.Article three: Classification of Blue-and-white Porcelain. The Blue-and-white porcelain mentioned in this thesis is generally three kinds: namely, monochrome blue-and-white porcelain, blue and white with copper red colors and blue and white with colored glaze. There are more than three hundred pieces of monochrome blue-and-white porcelain of Qing dynasty stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum. Of which, some of blue-and-white porcelain in Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong made in government kilns in Qing Dynasty can be called outstanding ones in type, workmanship, enamel and pattern. Blue and white with copper red colors was made in the early years of Kangxi period. But the color of red is still in the color development stage of being light as well as pure red under the glaze. Blue and white with copper red colors in Yongzheng dynasty was most successful in the history. Both colors of cobalt blue and underglazed red could be burned very bright, which proved making technology was highly mature at that time. The making of blue and white with copper red colors in Qianlong period was very popular on the basis of Yongzheng period. The making level of blue and white with copper red colors began to fall since Jiaqing period, the glaze was thin and gray, color and luster was far less bright than it was in Qianglong period and sometimes was scattered. It was in Guangxu period in the late years of Qing dynasty that blue and white with copper red colors was more prominent, although unable to reach the level in Yongzheng period, but it was outstanding in the late Qing dynasty. Blue and white with colored glaze generally refers to a kind of porcelain except monochrome blue-and-white porcelain and blue and white with copper red colors made by combination of blue and white and other colored glaze, there are 16 pieces of blue and white with colored glaze talked about in this thesis, based on the different characteristics of coloring processes, there are five kinds of blue and white with red decoration, blue and white with copper red colors, blue-and-white with purple, blue-and-white with pink, blue-and-white with overglaze red.Article four: Pattern of Blue and White Porcelain. The thematic pattern of porcelain talked about in this thesis includes animal pattern, plant pattern, story pattern, eight diagrams pattern, character pattern and fret pattern imitating that on ancient copper wares. Of which, animal pattern based on specific patterns is divided into dragons and phoenixes pattern (includes dragon among clouds, dragon in sea water, dragon among flowers, hornless dragon, dragon and phoenix, phoenix etc.), crane pattern, rare sea animal pattern, bat pattern, birds and flowers pattern, fishes and sea plants pattern, melons and butterflies pattern. Plant pattern includes according to different contents flowers pattern (varies in interlocking branches, broken branches, string branches), fruit and bamboo and rocks and bananas.Article five: Inscription on Blue-and-white Porcelain. Inscriptions on blue-and-white porcelain talked about in this thesis are all in accordance with Qing dynasty's way of counting years, there are dynasty inscription (also called reign inscription) and heavenly stems inscription according to contents, there are blue and white under glaze and red above glaze according to glaze color and there are seal character and regular script according to style of calligraphy. Of which, inscriptions in Shunzhi period were using heavenly stems in blue and white"The first day of summer in the tenth year of Shunzhi period"; inscriptions in Kangxi period are of two types of Qing dynasty and imitating previous dynasty, Qing dynasty inscription includes six Chinese characters"Made in Kangxi Period of Qing dynasty"in three or two lines in seal character or regular script; imitating previous dynasty inscription is the imitation of six characters in three lines of wanli; inscription in Yongzheng period includes types of six Chinese characters"Made in Yongzheng period of Qing dynasty"and four characters"Made in Yongzheng Period"; inscription in Qianlong period includes types of six Chinese characters"Made in Qianlong period of Qing dynasty"in blue and white and four Chinese characters"Made in Qianlong Period"in seal character and six Chinese characters in regular script in red; inscription in Jiaqing period is the type of six Chinese characters"Made in Jiaqing Period of Qing dynasty"in blue and white in seal character; inscription in Daoguang period includes the types of six characters"Made in Daoguang period of Qing dynasty"in blue and white in seal character and one in red in seal character; inscription in Guangxu period is the type of"Made in Guangxu period of Qing dynasty"in blue and white in regular script.Article six: Stages of Blue-and-white Porcelain. According to quality, number of finest pieces and socio-economic conditions and production status of porcelain making industry, and combining with the development of Qing dynasty porcelain from prosperity to decline, blue-and-white porcelain of Qing dynasty stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum includes three periods, namely, earlier years of Qing dynasty and Shunzhi period; early years of Qing dynasty and Kangxi period, Yongzheng period and Qianglong period; middle and late days of Qing dynasty, Jiaqing period, Daoguang period and Guangxu period.Concluding remarks summarize and conclude the study work done in this thesis. This thesis makes a preliminary and systematic study on some of blue-and-white porcelain of Qing dynasty stored up by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum and discusses mainly in several aspects of shape, variety, pattern, inscription and makes a study in stages on this basis.