Pre/Early Modern Colloquium: Ellen Huang (Art Center College of Design)

Body and Blood: Transformation and Simulacra in Jingdezhen Porcelain, 1500-1800s 

We are familiar with bone china, so named because of the pastes’ inclusion of animal bone ash amongst its ingredients, but can we speak of blood porcelain? What is the significance of body and blood in early modern porcelain?

In this talk, Huang draws upon case studies from her book manuscript to reposition early modern Jingdezhen porcelain as both an object-based practice and a form of material epistemology. This presentation shifts the discussion from a traditional focus on whiteness to decorative palettes characterized by attention to color, glaze fit, and kiln atmospheres. Through close analysis of these interrelated modes of porcelain-making as material play, she argues that positioning whiteness as the inevitable and ultimate design objective obscures the diverse material experimentation that defined Jingdezhen porcelain between 1500 and 1800. By attending closely to surface techniques, she highlights the artfulness of countless unnamed ceramists in Jingdezhen’s history—practitioners whose contributions are often overlooked. This project not only aims to illuminate an artisanal epistemology; it also proposes that the history of porcelain is best understood at the liminal boundaries between magic and art, body and knowledge, and life and death. As a global commodity, porcelain manifests a spectrality that animates its own ontology.