François Xavier d'Entrecolles (1664 in Lyon – 1741 in Beijing; Chinese name: 殷弘绪, Yin Hongxu) was a French Jesuit priest, who learned the Chinese technique of manufacturing porcelain through his investigations in China at Jingdezhen with the help of Chinese Catholic converts between 1712 and 1722, during the rule of the Kangxi Emperor. [1] His observations were published in a long letter in 1712, and carefully studied in several European countries, even though Meissen porcelain was already making hard-paste porcelain in Germany by then. The letter's author was given as Père d'Entrecolles ("Father d'Entrecolles"), and he is still very often referred to as this.
Lyon is the third-largest city and second-largest urban area of France. It is located in the country's east-central part at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, about 470 km (292 mi) south from Paris, 320 km (199 mi) north from Marseille and 56 km (35 mi) northeast from Saint-Étienne. Inhabitants of the city are called Lyonnais.
Beijing, formerly romanized as Peking, is the capital of the People's Republic of China, the world's third most populous city proper, and most populous capital city. The city, located in northern China, is governed as a municipality under the direct administration of central government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing Municipality is surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin Municipality to the southeast; together the three divisions form the Jingjinji metropolitan region and the national capital region of China.
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. The toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainly from vitrification and the formation of the mineral mullite within the body at these high temperatures. Though definitions vary, porcelain can be divided into three main categories: hard-paste, soft-paste and bone china. The category that an object belongs to depends on the composition of the paste used to make the body of the porcelain object and the firing conditions.
D'Entrecolles entered the Society of Jesus in 1682. [2] He arrived in China in 1698 to become a member of the Jesuit China missions. [3] Initially proselytizing in Jiangxi, he then became Superior General of the French Jesuits in China from 1706 to 1719. [2] [4]
The Society of Jesus is a scholarly religious congregation of the Catholic Church for men which originated in sixteenth-century Spain. The members are called Jesuits. The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations. Jesuits work in education, intellectual research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, sponsor direct social ministries, and promote ecumenical dialogue.
The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a significant role in continuing the transmission of knowledge, science, and culture between China and the West, and influenced Christian culture in Chinese society today.
Jiangxi is a province in the People's Republic of China, located in the southeast of the country. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north into hillier areas in the south and east, it shares a border with Anhui to the north, Zhejiang to the northeast, Fujian to the east, Guangdong to the south, Hunan to the west, and Hubei to the northwest.
D'Entrecolles was then Superior of the French Residence in Beijing from 1722 to 1732. [2] He died in Beijing in 1741.
Independently of d'Entrecolles, but unknown to him, in 1710 the German Johann Friedrich Böttger (and possibly Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus before him in 1708) had already discovered the secret of hard-paste porcelain manufacture, which led to the establishment of the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory. D'Entrecolles used direct observation at the kilns, as well as the technical knowledge of some of his converts, and also directly consulted Chinese technical sources, thought to be the 1682 printing of the Fu-liang Hsien Chih. [2]
Johann Friedrich Böttger was a German alchemist. He was born in Schleiz and died in Dresden, and is normally credited with being the first European to discover the secret of the creation of hard-paste porcelain in 1708, but it has also been claimed that English manufacturers or Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus produced porcelain first. Certainly, the Meissen factory, established 1710, was the first to produce porcelain in Europe in large quantities and since the recipe was kept a trade secret by Böttger for his company, experiments continued elsewhere throughout Europe.
Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus was a German mathematician, physicist, physician, and philosopher. He introduced the Tschirnhaus transformation and is considered by some to have been the inventor of European porcelain, an invention long accredited to Johann Friedrich Böttger but others claim porcelain had been made by English manufacturers at an even earlier date.
Meissen porcelain or Meissen china was the first European hard-paste porcelain. It was developed starting in 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger continued von Tschirnhaus's work and brought porcelain to the market. The production of porcelain at Meissen, near Dresden, started in 1710 and attracted artists and artisans to establish one of the most famous porcelain manufacturers known throughout the world. Its signature logo, the crossed swords, was introduced in 1720 to protect its production; the mark of the swords is one of the oldest trademarks in existence.
D'Entrecolles sent back to Father Orry, S.J., Procator of the Jesuit missions in China and the Indies, a detailed, very comprehensive and well-structured letter to communicate his findings: [2]
"From time to time I have stayed in Ching-tê-chên to administer to the spiritual necessities of my converts, and so I have interested myself in the manufacture of this beautiful porcelain, which is so highly prized, and is sent to all parts of the world. Nothing but my curiosity could ever have prompted me to such researches, but it appears to me that a minute description of all that concerns this kind of work might, somehow, be useful in Europe." Introduction of "The Letters of Père d'Entrecolles". [5]
Jingdezhen is a prefecture-level city, previously a town, in northeastern Jiangxi province, China, with a total population of 1,554,000 (2007), bordering Anhui to the north. It is known as the "Porcelain Capital" because it has been producing pottery for 1,700 years. The city has a well-documented history that stretches back over 2,000 years.
French porcelain |
---|
|
The letters were sent to Father Louis-François Orry, treasurer in Paris of the Jesuit missions to China and India, who soon had them published in the Jesuit missions' annual report Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de Chine par des missionnaires jésuites (1702–76). [6] They were again published by Jean-Baptiste Du Halde in 1735, with English editions appearing in 1736 or 1738. [2] The letters were later again published by Abbé Jean-Baptiste Grosier in his General Description of China. [4] D'Entrecolles also sent material specimens to Europe, which were analysed by Réaumur, and led to the establishment of the Sèvres Manufactory once equivalent materials were found in Europe. [4]
In England, his work encouraged the creation of various porcelain works, such as Plymouth porcelain.
D'Entrecolles left Jingdezhen for Beijing to take new responsibilities in 1723. [7]
He died in Beijing in 1741. [4]
D'Entrecolles also wrote letters about how the Chinese raised silkworms, and manufactured artificial flowers and synthetic pearls, and practised oral vaccination against smallpox. [2] In 1734 d'Entrecolles also discussed how the Chinese manufactured mercury. [3]
As a result of d'Entrecolles' work, which has sometimes been described as Industrial espionage By whom? Citations required, Chinese exports of porcelain soon shrank considerably, especially by the end of the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. [8]
D'Entrecolles was also a translator of Chinese scientific works into French. [9]
Following the publication by Father Orry, and later by Jean-Baptiste du Halde in his Description de l'Empire de la Chine (1735), d'Entrecolles' account was used verbatim with attribution in Diderot's Encyclopédie (1751–72). [10]
Josiah Wedgwood, the famous English porcelain manufacturer, is known to have copied extracts of d'Entrecolles' work in his Commonplace Book. [10] D'Entrecolles' work was also reproduced, without attribution, in Malachy Postlethwayt's widely influential Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (1757–74). [10]
The Vincennes porcelain manufactory was established in 1740 in the disused royal Château de Vincennes, in Vincennes, east of Paris, which was from the start the main market for its wares.
Chinese export porcelain includes a wide range of Chinese porcelain that was made (almost) exclusively for export to Europe and later to North America between the 16th and the 20th century. Whether wares made for non-Western markets are covered by the term depends on context. Chinese ceramics made mainly for export go back to the Tang dynasty if not earlier, though initially they may not be regarded as porcelain.
"Blue and white pottery" covers a wide range of white pottery and porcelain decorated under the glaze with a blue pigment, generally cobalt oxide. The decoration is commonly applied by hand, originally by brush painting, but nowadays by stencilling or by transfer-printing, though other methods of application have also been used. The cobalt pigment is one of the very few that can withstand the highest firing temperatures that are required, in particular for porcelain, which partly accounts for its long-lasting popularity. Historically, many other colours required overglaze decoration and then a second firing at a lower temperature to fix that.
Hard-paste porcelain is a ceramic material that was originally made from a compound of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at very high temperature, usually around 1400 °C. It was first made in China around the 7th or 8th century, and has remained the most common type of Chinese porcelain.
The manufacture nationale de Sèvres is one of the principal European porcelain manufactories. It is located in Sèvres, Hauts-de-Seine, France. It is the continuation of Vincennes porcelain, founded in 1738, which moved to Sèvres in 1756. It has been owned by the French crown or government since 1759, and has always maintained the highest standards of quality. Almost immediately, it replaced Meissen porcelain as the standard-setter among European porcelain factories, retaining this position until at least the 19th century.
Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era. Chinese ceramics range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese porcelain wares made for the imperial court and for export. Porcelain was a Chinese invention and is so identified with China that it is still called "china" in everyday English usage.
Plymouth porcelain was the first English hard paste porcelain, made in the county of Devon from 1768 to 1770. After two years in Plymouth the factory moved to Bristol in 1770, where it operated until 1781, when it was sold and moved to Staffordshire as the neucleus of New Hall porcelain, which operated until 1835. The Plymouth factory was founded by William Cookworthy. The porcelain factories at Plymouth and Bristol were among the earliest English manufacturers of porcelain, and the first to produce the hard-paste porcelain produced in China and the German factories led by Meissen porcelain.
Jean-Baptiste Régis was a French Jesuit missionary in imperial China.
Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare was a Jesuit missionary to China. Born in Cherbourg, he departed for China in 1698, and worked as a missionary in Guangxi.
Jean-Baptiste Du Halde was a French Jesuit historian specializing in China. He did not travel to China, but collected seventeen Jesuit missionaries' reports and provided an encyclopedic survey of the history, culture and society of China and "Chinese Tartary," that is, Manchuria.
China–France relations, also known as Sino-French relations or Franco-Chinese relations, refers to the interstate relations between China and France.
Dominique Parrenin or Parennin巴多明 was a French Jesuit missionary to China.
Dehua porcelain, more traditionally known in the West as Blanc de Chine, is a type of white Chinese porcelain, made at Dehua in the Fujian province. It has been produced from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) to the present day. Large quantities arrived in Europe as Chinese export porcelain in the early 18th century and it was copied at Meissen and elsewhere. It was also exported to Japan in large quantities.
Dong'e County falls under the jurisdiction of Liaocheng Prefecture-level city, in the Shandong Province of China. It is located on the left (northern) bank of the Yellow River, some 100 km (62 mi) upstream from the provincial capital Jinan.
Jingdezhen porcelain is Chinese porcelain produced in or near Jingdezhen in southern China. Jingdezhen may have produced pottery as early as the sixth century CE, though it is named after the reign name of Emperor Zhenzong, in whose reign it became a major kiln site, around 1004. By the 14th century it had become the largest centre of production of Chinese porcelain, which it has remained, increasing its dominance in subsequent centuries. From the Ming period onwards, official kilns in Jingdezhen were controlled by the emperor, making imperial porcelain in large quantity for the court and the emperor to give as gifts.
Orientalism in early modern France refers to the interaction of pre-modern France with the Orient, and especially the cultural, scientific, artistic and intellectual impact of these interactions, ranging from the academic field of Oriental studies to Orientalism in fashions in the decorative arts.
The Nevers manufactory was a French manufacturing centre for faience in the city of Nevers. The first factory was started around 1588 by three Italian brothers, who brought the majolica tradition with them. A porcelain manufactury in Nevers was also mentioned in 1844 by Alexandre Brongniart, but little is known about it.
French porcelain has a history spanning a period from the 17th century to the present. The French were heavily involved in the early European efforts to discover the secrets of making the hard-paste porcelain known from Chinese and Japanese export porcelain. They succeeded in developing soft-paste porcelain, but Meissen porcelain was the first to make true hard-paste, around 1710, and the French took over 50 years to catch up with Meissen and the other German factories.
Chinese Tartary is an archaic geographical term used especially during the time of the Qing Dynasty. The term was used as early as 1734 on a map created by the French geographer and cartographer Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville (1697–1782) who published the map in the Nouvel atlas de la Chine, de la Tartarie Chinoise et du Thibet in 1738. D’Anville’s map was based on work ordered by the Emperor of China and conducted by Chinese under the supervision of the Jesuits. Also published in 1738 was A description of the empire of China and Chinese-Tartary together with the kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet by Father Jean-Baptiste Du Halde. He went on to write in 1741 The General History of China Containing a Geographical, Historical, Chronological, Political and Physical Description of the Empire of China, Chinese-Tartary, Corea and Thibet. Modern areas today that were described by their work as falling within Chinese Tartary included: