Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries

Hi all.
I have seen many ginger jars, most of which I suspect are tourist items. I recently found the jar below when I was unpacking some boxes from my attic: I'd forgotten I had it!
This is probably another tourist item, but I thought I would ask whether anybody can confirm this based upon the markings on the bottom.
Thank you for any help.
Jack

The circular Chinese character mark reads across and down from right to left as:
Jiangxi [Province] - 江西
Jingdezhen [Kiln Center] - 景德鎮
Ming (18) Ci - Famous (18) [factory?] porcelain - 名(18)瓷

This jar possibly dates to circa 1950, after the PRC was proclaimed and before the Jingdezhen factories were regimented under their present marking system. On the other hand, gotheborg.com shows another piece with a Jiangxi round mark that their source describes as painted in Hong Kong. I mention this because your jar seems to be transfer-decorated, for which kind of ornamentation Hong Kong and neighboring Macao have long been famous. I couldn't spot a Mainland Factory No. 18 among those listed in the gotheborg.com archive.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Thank you so much Bill...much appreciated.
I suspect I should know, but how were you able to identify this jar was transfer-decorated?
Would the Hong Kong possibility not be negated by the Jiangxi markings on the base, or was there a 'flow' of work from Jiangxi to the south (Hong Kong) for decorating?
Kind regards

The transfer decoration technique is evident in the green scroll, where some of the black lines overlie each other in a manner that wouldn't be so evident if they were hand-painted. Also, the large red stylized long life characters have a curdled look, which is seen often with stamped marks.

Where this base-mark was applied is a moot point, because all such marks I've seen from the Mainland were applied either with stamps or decals, and there's no reason a decorating shop in Hong Kong couldn't do the same. In the 1980s, I visited some Bangkok-area porcelain decorating shops, which used pre-glazed blanks from Jingdezhen with markings already applied. Here's one such jar I've hung onto with a mark of "Ruo Shen Zhen Cang" (Precious collection of the seemingly old). This may suggest that blanks painted in Hong Kong also sometimes are pre-marked in China.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Thats very interesting Bill and add to my growing knowledge.
Thank you for taking the time.
Jack.

Asianart.com | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries |