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- In 1736 he appointed Tang Ying to succeed Nian Xiyao as director of the Jingdezhen kilns. There can be little doubt that of the three great directors of the High Qing period, Tang Ying was the most accomplished. It was under him that the kilns of Jingdezhen reached new levels of innovation and refinement of skills. He was an able administrator, and had the admiration and confidence of the potters because he had meals with them and shared their sleeping quarters, so as to gain a complete knowledge of even the smallest details of their handicraft.
Tang Ying had profound knowledge of the technical side of ceramics and discovered the secret of many new glazes. He carefully studied the properties of the different clays and glazes and the action of fire upon them, so that his results were highly finished and perfectly translucent. Under him the growing taste for imitations of the famous classical wares of ancient times was accomplished with masterly skill. His genius and ability over the material was never equalled before or afterwards. It seems that he was in such complete command that he succeeded in almost everything he attempted.
Tang Ying was constantly experimenting with new ideas and succeeded in reproducing porcelain with the colour and texture of chiselled gold, embossed silver, grained wood [xxn], bamboo, rusty bronze, lacquer, chisselled stone, carved jade, ivory, mother-of-pearl inlay, shell, gourd and cloisonne. Complex surface colours could even give the impression of mottled jade, variegated marble, agate and pudding stone [xxvn]. Carvings made in rhinoceros horn, bamboo and wood were all successfully imitated in porcelain. This deceptively accurate mimicry is so good that it is often necessary to handle the piece in order to convince oneself that it is not what is imitated but really is porcelain. There seems to have been an incessant search throughout the country and foreign nations for new technical possibilities to extend their repertoire. The Jingdezhen potters copied Italian faience drug pots, Venetian glass, Limoges enamels, and even Dutch Delft and Japanese Imari, which were themselves poor imitations of late Ming blue and white.
Many types of porcelain made during the Qianlong period remain basically the same as those of the Yongzheng period. Some of the popular monochromes of this period include: iron rust, tea dust, coral red, sapphire blue, cucumber green, mustard yellow, a mottle of turquoise and blue called Robin�s egg [53], and fine flambe glazes [xii]. The deep red in the flambe glazes at times was
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