Benutzer:Dottoredellapeste/Doucai

Mehrfarbiges cloisonné, Emailfarben auf dünnen Metallkörpern, war im frühen 15. Jahrhundert ausschließlich für den Gebrauch am Hof und seinen Tempeln entwickelt worden.^[9] Die Formen waren ähnlich wie beim Porzellan, so dass die Keramiker sich vielleicht zum Mithalten angeregt fühlten. Vor 1850 bestellte der Hof eine Reihe von zweifarbigen Kombinationen auf weißem Grund.^[10] Vielleicht liegen hier die Ursprünge des Douai-Porzellans.^[11]

Die Doucai-Technik kam erstmals zur Zeit des Xuande Emperor (1426–1435) auf. Ein Teller mit rotem und grünem Email wurde bei Ausgrabungen von Brennöfen in Jingdezhen gefunden.^[12] Den Höhepunkt ihrer Entwicklung erreichte die Technik während der letzten Regierungsjahre Kaiser Chenghua Emperor, der von 1464 bis 1487 regierte. Die doucai-Stücke stammen alle aus den Jahren zwischen 1472 und 1487und sind äußerst selten.^[13] Nach der Chenghua-Periode verschlechterte sich die Qualität des kaiserlichen Porzellans der Mingzeit. Als die Technik in der Qingzeit wieder gebräuchlich wurde, galten die Werke der Chenghua-Zeit schon als die besten in der Geschichte des chinesischen Porzellans.^[14]

Es ist bekannt dass Weinschalen aus der Chenghua-Periode schon bei Sammlern zur Zeit des Kaisers Wanli Wanli Emperor (1573–1619) begehrt waren und hohe Preise erzielten.^[15] Im 18. Jahrhundert wurden vor allem die so genannten „Hühnerschalen“ in der Literatur als Objekte von großem Wert erwähnt, beispielsweise im Traum der Roten Kammer Dream of the Red Chamber von Cao Xueqin (gest. 1763), eines der vier klassischen Romane Four Great Classical Novels Chinas. The Qianlong Emperor wrote a poem about the cups.^[16]

There was a certain revival of the style in the Wanli period, and a larger one under the Yongzheng Emperor (1723–1735) of the Qing dynasty.^[17] Pieces were occasionally produced thereafter, in particular of the chicken cups and stem cups with grapes, two of the most admired designs of the Chenghua period.^[18] The discovery and examination by the archaeologist Liu Xinyuan (劉新園) and his team of a heap of discarded broken porcelains of the Chenghua period at the imperial kiln site at Jingdezhen "revolutionised scholars' knowledge of patterns and forms of doucai".^[19]

In 2014, the "Meiyintang Chicken Cup", a small doucai wine cup 8.2 cm wide, achieved a world record price for Chinese ceramics, selling at Sotheby's in Hong Kong for 281,240,000HKD (US$36.05 million),^[20][21] bought by Liu Yiqian. Later pieces can also fetch high prices.^[22]

The rare Chenghua pieces are small, but of very high quality. They are thin-walled porcelain of the standard Jingezhen porcelain of the time. Decoration is restrained, with relatively large parts of the surfaces left as white background; often bowls are only decorated on their outside. The colours in Chenghua pieces are the underglaze blue, and overglaze red, green, yellow and an aubergine (eggplant) purple-brown. This last is transparent and can be used over the other colours, requiring yet another firing.^[23] Most pieces carry a six-character reign mark, and the Chenghua mark became "the most widely imitated of all marks" in later periods.^[24]

The small "chicken cups", typically only some 8 cm wide and 4 cm high, have been often imitated in later periods. The subject was inspired by paintings. The Chenghua examples used successive layers of enamel to represent texture and shading; by imitations from the 18th century this could be achieved within a single coat.^[25] Doucai pieces from the 18th century and later are either imitations of the small Chenghua pieces, or much larger shapes typical of contemporary wares, where doucai has been adopted as a technique largely as a nod to the past.^[26]

The usual distinction made with the wucai technique, which also combines underglaze blue with overglaze enamels in other colours, is that in doucai the whole design is painted or outlined in the blue, even if parts are overlaid by the enamels and invisible in the finished product.^[27] However, this is not true of all pieces classified as doucai, especially from the 18th century onwards. Fragments of incomplete examples, only done in blue, have been excavated from waste tips at the kiln.^[28] In wucai only parts of the design include blue, and these cover wider areas, and are often rather freely painted.^[29]

• 
  Interior of Chenghua dish, 23 millimetres high, 84 wide, PDF,A.780
• 
  Vase with Pine, Bamboo, Plum, Camellia, and Dragon Yongzheng reign, 1723–1735
• 
  Covered bowl with dragons in the Taoist Eastern Ocean, Yongzheng reign
• 
  One of a pair of large dishes with dragon and phoenix design, Yongzheng period, 1723–1735
• 
  Underside of the last, Yongzheng period, 1723–1735
• 
  Dish, Yongzheng Reign, 1723–1735
• 
  Covered box with flowers, Qianlong Emperor, 1735–1796

Vorlage:Commons category

• "Christie's": Sale 2861, "The Imperial Sale", Lot 3582, 1 June 2011, "An important and very rare Ming imperial doucai stemcup"
• Clunas, Craig and Harrison-Hall, Jessica, Ming: 50 years that changed China, 2014, British Museum Press, Vorlage:ISBN
• "Grove", Medley, Margaret, Oxford Art Online, section "Ming; Jingdezhen porcelains, Polychome" in "China, §VIII, 3: Ceramics: Historical development"
• Medley, Margaret, The Chinese Potter: A Practical History of Chinese Ceramics, 3rd edition, 1989, Phaidon, Vorlage:ISBN
• Nillson, Jan-Eric, "Doucai Chinese porcelain decoration", in Chinese porcelain glossary, Gotheborg.com
• Pierson, Stacey, From Object to Concept: Global Consumption and the Transformation of Ming Porcelain, 2013, Hong Kong University Press, Vorlage:ISBN, 9789888139835, google books
• Rawson, Jessica (ed). The British Museum Book of Chinese Art, 2007 (2nd edn), British Museum Press, Vorlage:ISBN
• "Sotheby's": the "Meiyintang Chicken Cup", Sotheby's Hong Kong, Sale HK0545 Lot: 1, 8 April 2014
• Vainker, S.J., Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, 1991, British Museum Press, 9780714114705
• Valenstein, S. (1998). A handbook of Chinese ceramics, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Vorlage:ISBN (fully online)

[[Category:Chinese pottery]]