Chinese Porcelain Collection
Location
This is the river banks of the Chang River flowing through the city of Jingdezhen (to the left) looking south towards Poyang lake far downstream. Here all kinds of ceramic debris have been dumped over the last 1000 years, so as the city now are situated on a thick layer of porcelain shards. Somewhere around here, the Imperial kiln was built during the Yuan dynasty to supply Djingis Kahns descendants with porcelain. Don't you too just want to go get a spade?
Photo: © Jan-Erik Nilsson, 1991
This remarkably city is situated in the South of China in the Jiangxi Province, about 750 kilometers inland, from Shanghai. By waterways you would follow the Yangtse river from Shanghai to the Poyang lake, south of the Yangtse, and then go upstream along its tributary river, the Changjiang, which will eventually take you directly to Jingdezhen.
Via the Poyang Lake and the Yangtse River, Nanking could be reached. By the Grand Canal, an unbroken 1800 kilometers long, safe, inland waterway Beijing could be reached where the emperor eagerly awaited his yearly supply of porcelain.
During 1991 and 1992 I had the privilege to visit the city of Jingdezhen and its surroundings as an interested student of Chinese porcelain functioning as expedition photographer in a small group of scholars and students of Oriental art, the most notably being Bo Gyllensvärd, former head and founder of The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm. All pictures illustrating this article is taken then.
Text and photos © Jan-Erik Nilsson, Göteborg 1991, 1992 and 2000.