In the early 14th century, mass-production of fine, translucent, blue and white porcelain started at Jingdezhen, sometimes called the porcelain capital of China. There are still those arguing that early pieces are mis-dated, and in fact go back to the Southern Song, but most scholars continue to reject this view. In the early 20th century, the development of the classic blue and white Jingdezhen ware porcelain was dated to the early Ming period, but consensus now agrees that these wares began to be made around 1300-1320, and were fully developed by the mid-century, as shown by the David Vases dated 1351, which are cornerstones for this chronology. 1335, in the Yuan dynasty Jingdezhen ware. 14th-century development Early Chinese blue and white porcelain, c. Textual and archaeological evidence suggests that blue-and-white wares may have been produced during the Song dynasty, although the identification of Song dynasty blue-and-white pieces remains the subject of disagreement among experts. It appears that the technique was forgotten for some centuries. The only three pieces of complete 'Tang blue and white' in the world were recovered from Indonesian Belitung shipwreck in 1998 and later sold to Singapore. The Tang pieces are not porcelain however, but rather earthenwares with greenish white slip, using cobalt blue pigments. Tang period blue-and-white is more rare than Song blue-and-white and was unknown before 1985. The first Chinese blue and white wares were produced as early as the seventh century in Henan province, China during the Tang dynasty, although only shards have been discovered. Found in the Belitung shipwreck, dated ca.

Tang and Song blue-and-white A blue and white stoneware plate with floral motif (cobalt-blue pigment over white slip), manufactured in kilns in Gongxian, Henan. Later, a cobalt blue glaze became popular in Islamic pottery during the Abbasid Caliphate, during which time the cobalt was mined near Kashan, Oman, and Northern Hejaz. īlue glazes were first developed by ancient Mesopotamians to imitate lapis lazuli, which was a highly prized stone. Origin and development Islamic tin-glazed earthenware, with blue and white decoration, Iraq, 9th century. Blue and white pottery in all of these traditions continues to be produced, most of it copying earlier styles. It was widely exported, and inspired imitative wares in Islamic ceramics, and in Japan, and later European tin-glazed earthenware such as Delftware and after the techniques were discovered in the 18th century, European porcelain. Blue and white decoration first became widely used in Chinese porcelain in the 14th century, after the cobalt pigment for the blue began to be imported from Persia. In China, a style of decoration based on sinuous plant forms spreading across the object was perfected and most commonly used. Such Abbasid-era pieces have been found in present-day Iraq dating to the 9th century A.D., decades after the opening of a direct sea route from Iraq to China. The origin of the blue glazes thought to lie in Iraq, when craftsmen in Basra sought to imitate imported white Chinese stoneware with their own tin-glazed, white pottery and added decorative motifs in blue glazes.

Historically, many other colours required overglaze decoration and then a second firing at a lower temperature to fix that. The cobalt pigment is one of the very few that can withstand the highest firing temperatures that are required, in particular for porcelain, which partly accounts for its long-lasting popularity. The decoration is commonly applied by hand, originally by brush painting, but nowadays by stencilling or by transfer-printing, though other methods of application have also been used. 'Blue flowers/patterns') covers a wide range of white pottery and porcelain decorated under the glaze with a blue pigment, generally cobalt oxide. ' Blue and white pottery' ( Chinese: 青花 pinyin: qīng-huā lit. Chinese blue and white jar, Ming dynasty, mid-15th centuryĭutch delftware vase in a Japanese style, c.

Cobalt blue flower vase