I've been a regular visitor to Jingdezhen for 15 years, and continually marvel at the goods produced there. I inherited a few pieces of Wedgwood and Royal Daulton porcelain from grandparents, and have compared the products to pieces I own from Falangci and other kilns in Jingdezhen.
Wedgwood may have developed systems to manufacture porcelain that satisfied his customers, but when one holds a Wedgwood piece and a Falangci piece in their hands, the differences are stark. The Wedgwood, in comparison to Falangci, is heavy crude junk. Even the materials are crude; they may have found kaolin to suffice, but they still weren't able to duplicate the pure white China stone, since it is only found (so far) in one place on Earth...Yaoli, up the valley from Jingdezhen.
Without Yaoli White China stone, the good stuff is still out of reach, not to mention the hand painting and decoration of Royal Daulton and Wedgewood is a joke compared to the Chinese craftspeople, who are still creating masterpieces. You can still see them at work at Taoxichuan (陶溪川), the old industrial kiln area renovated into an arts and performance complex.
So, industrial systems were reformed and reworked to satisfy Europeans, but the stuff is still junk compared to the finest Jingdezhen porcelain.
D’Entrecolles told Europe that the secret of porcelain lay in a mineral system and a production system. Meissen proved that Europe could use local kaolin, mineral experimentation, and high-temperature kilns to produce hard-paste porcelain. Cookworthy later proved that Britain could also find functional substitutes for kaolin and china stone in Cornwall.
But this does not mean Europe fully replicated Jingdezhen.
The whiteness, body quality, painting, glaze, touch, and firing judgment of the finest Jingdezhen porcelain could not be reproduced simply by discovering kaolin.
What Europe decoded was a viable industrial pathway to hard-paste porcelain production.
It did not fully reproduce Jingdezhen’s highest-level material ecology and handmade aesthetic system.
Occasionally, I'll have a crafts or artist friend insist Wedgwood is good stuff, so I show them "the test". I take two roughly similar sized teacups, one Wedgwood, the other Falangci. I flick the Wedgwood with my finger; it sounds like the fat part of an oar thumping an old wood tub. Then I flick the Falangci in the same way, and there is a crystal clear ring that holds for several seconds, like a cosmic chime.
Yes Chinese porcelain is often by its clear ringing resonance when struck.
But the sound of Falangci / enamel-painted porcelain mainly comes from the high-fired porcelain body, not from the low-fired enamel decoration on the surface. Falangci is made by painting enamel colors onto an already-fired porcelain body and then firing it again at a lower temperature. The decorative layer is very thin and usually does not determine the object’s overall acoustic quality.
What really determines the sound is the porcelain body itself: its whiteness, density, degree of vitrification, wall thickness, shape, and whether there are hidden cracks. Porosity in ceramic materials can significantly affect elastic properties. If a high-quality Jingdezhen porcelain body is denser, more homogeneous, and more fully vitrified, it will have a stronger elastic response and lower internal damping. That is why, when struck, it can produce a longer and brighter ring.
In other words, the object is thin-walled, hard-bodied, well-sintered, and relatively uniform in stress distribution and wall thickness.
So Europe decoded and industrialized a viable pathway to hard-paste porcelain production, but it did not fully reproduce Jingdezhen’s highest-level material ecology, body control, firing judgment, trimming skill, and handmade aesthetic system.
I've been a regular visitor to Jingdezhen for 15 years, and continually marvel at the goods produced there. I inherited a few pieces of Wedgwood and Royal Daulton porcelain from grandparents, and have compared the products to pieces I own from Falangci and other kilns in Jingdezhen.
Wedgwood may have developed systems to manufacture porcelain that satisfied his customers, but when one holds a Wedgwood piece and a Falangci piece in their hands, the differences are stark. The Wedgwood, in comparison to Falangci, is heavy crude junk. Even the materials are crude; they may have found kaolin to suffice, but they still weren't able to duplicate the pure white China stone, since it is only found (so far) in one place on Earth...Yaoli, up the valley from Jingdezhen.
Without Yaoli White China stone, the good stuff is still out of reach, not to mention the hand painting and decoration of Royal Daulton and Wedgewood is a joke compared to the Chinese craftspeople, who are still creating masterpieces. You can still see them at work at Taoxichuan (陶溪川), the old industrial kiln area renovated into an arts and performance complex.
So, industrial systems were reformed and reworked to satisfy Europeans, but the stuff is still junk compared to the finest Jingdezhen porcelain.
Awesome!
Yes, kaolin was the key clue.
D’Entrecolles told Europe that the secret of porcelain lay in a mineral system and a production system. Meissen proved that Europe could use local kaolin, mineral experimentation, and high-temperature kilns to produce hard-paste porcelain. Cookworthy later proved that Britain could also find functional substitutes for kaolin and china stone in Cornwall.
But this does not mean Europe fully replicated Jingdezhen.
The whiteness, body quality, painting, glaze, touch, and firing judgment of the finest Jingdezhen porcelain could not be reproduced simply by discovering kaolin.
What Europe decoded was a viable industrial pathway to hard-paste porcelain production.
It did not fully reproduce Jingdezhen’s highest-level material ecology and handmade aesthetic system.
Occasionally, I'll have a crafts or artist friend insist Wedgwood is good stuff, so I show them "the test". I take two roughly similar sized teacups, one Wedgwood, the other Falangci. I flick the Wedgwood with my finger; it sounds like the fat part of an oar thumping an old wood tub. Then I flick the Falangci in the same way, and there is a crystal clear ring that holds for several seconds, like a cosmic chime.
That's when folks understand the difference.
Yes Chinese porcelain is often by its clear ringing resonance when struck.
But the sound of Falangci / enamel-painted porcelain mainly comes from the high-fired porcelain body, not from the low-fired enamel decoration on the surface. Falangci is made by painting enamel colors onto an already-fired porcelain body and then firing it again at a lower temperature. The decorative layer is very thin and usually does not determine the object’s overall acoustic quality.
What really determines the sound is the porcelain body itself: its whiteness, density, degree of vitrification, wall thickness, shape, and whether there are hidden cracks. Porosity in ceramic materials can significantly affect elastic properties. If a high-quality Jingdezhen porcelain body is denser, more homogeneous, and more fully vitrified, it will have a stronger elastic response and lower internal damping. That is why, when struck, it can produce a longer and brighter ring.
In other words, the object is thin-walled, hard-bodied, well-sintered, and relatively uniform in stress distribution and wall thickness.
So Europe decoded and industrialized a viable pathway to hard-paste porcelain production, but it did not fully reproduce Jingdezhen’s highest-level material ecology, body control, firing judgment, trimming skill, and handmade aesthetic system.
Yes, of course. It's hard to explain to folks knowing nothing of fine porcelain. The acoustic "test" shows them the difference in a way they can feel.