Learning from pictures? Illustrations of porcelain manufacture as ‘how to’ guides.

Images of the Chinese porcelain manufacture have been in circulation for many centuries. Accompanied by text, such images provide useful insights for understanding the processes involved in the manufacture of porcelain. Images of porcelain production were also popular items of trade art. Porcelain production was even depicted on the surfaces of pieces of porcelain. Could such images also serve as practical guides for learning to make porcelain? Probably not, but this paper asks how to make sense of these pictures.

Anne Gerritsen is professor of History at the University of Warwick, and currently holds the Chair of Asian Art at the University of Leiden. She has published on local and global history, and on (global) material culture. Her book, The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020.