To make such monumental vases, Chinese workshops had to draw on centuries of experience and expertise. Porcelain-making required highly-specialised craft skills – from the specialists mining the necessary clays and minerals to artisans producing a raw paste from kaolin, feldspar and quartz, modellers creating the designs, and skilled porcelain painters applying the colours. Other specialists tended the large ‘dragon kilns’ where the porcelain was fired.
The ‘Dragoon Vases’ are named after an exchange of gifts most likely only ever possible under absolutism.
Further Media
- Material & Technique
- Porcelain, painting: underglaze cobalt blue
- Museum
- Porzellansammlung
- Dating
- China, Jingdezhen, Qing dynasty (1644-1911), Kangxi period (1662-1722), c. 1700
- Inventory number
- PO 1011