This rice eye or rice grain pattern on the piece(s) has deep roots in Chinese history. It was made in Jingdezhen, China, the porcelain capital of the world. The artistry of its ceramic masters is famous. Based on the hand stamped ink on the bottom of the piece(s). This was most likely produced in the 1970s - 1980s. When you hold the piece(s) up to the light, the rice "eyes" or grains let the light through (see photos, it's stunning). The history combined with the artistry and beauty makes this wonderful piece(s) to own. It is in great shape with the exception of needing a good wash from being stored.
It is called the ‘Rice Grain’ pattern, a misnomer because it was thought for many years that the rice shaped translucent elements which characterize this pattern were made by inserting rice grains into the clay before glazing and firing. This is not the actual method of manufacture. The ‘rice’ shapes were made by carefully cutting out pieces from the porcelain and, when glazed, created this characteristic translucency."
Jingdezhen porcelain (Chinese: 景德镇陶瓷) is Chinese porcelain produced in or near Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province 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.
Although apparently an unpromising location for potteries, being a remote town in a hilly region, Jingdezhen is close to the best quality deposits of petuntse, or porcelain stone, in China, as well as being surrounded by forests, mostly of pine, providing wood for the kilns. It also has a river leading to river systems flowing north and south, facilitating transport of fragile wares. The imperial kilns were in the centre of the city at Zhushan (Pearl Hill), with many other kilns four kilometres away at Hutian.
It has produced a great variety of pottery and porcelain, for the Chinese market and as Chinese export porcelain, but its best-known high quality porcelain wares have been successively Qingbai ware in the Song and Yuan dynasties, blue and white porcelain from the 1330s, and the "famille rose" and other "famille" colors under the Qing dynasty.
Official kilns
The Mongol Yuan dynasty established a body, the "Fuliang Porcelain Bureau" to regulate production, and the next Ming dynasty established official kilns to produce porcelain for the emperor; Jingdezhen continued to produce Imperial porcelain until the end of Imperial rule. The imperial kilns were situated at Pearl Hill (Zhushan) in Jingdezhen; some scholars give a date of 1369 for the commencement of production. But there continued to be many other kilns, producing wares for many distinct markets.
The imperial court, except during periods of crisis, generated a huge demand for porcelain. Apart from the vast main palaces and other residences, for much of the period the many princes had subsidiary regional courts. There were imperial temples to be supplied, each of which was given monochrome wares in different colors, as well as several monasteries and shrines. The porcelain to which different ranks of the imperial household were entitled were set out in minute detail in regulations. The final version of these, from 1899, specified that the Empress Dowager Cixi was allowed 821 pieces of yellow porcelain, while the Empress had 1,014. A concubine of the first rank had 121 pieces of yellow with a white interior, but those of the second rank had yellow decorated with green dragons.
Ming
The Ming dynasty is normally dated as beginning in 1368, but there was a long revolt against the Yuan dynasty, and Jingdezhen was lost by them in 1352. By 1402 there were twelve imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, then one of three areas with imperial kilns. Production was controlled by a ministry in the capital, by then in Beijing, far to the north. Production was on a huge scale, employing hundreds if not thousands of workers, whose tasks were divided into several specialties to increase efficiency and consistency. In 1433 a single order from the palace was for 443,500 pieces of porcelain, all with dragon and phoenix designs. Court artists were by now supplying drawn or woodblock printed designs from the capital. These enormous quantities were distributed by the palace to the subsidiary courts of the many Ming princes sent to govern provinces, as well as being presented as gifts to other notables, and sent abroad as diplomatic gifts. Some may also have been sold, especially for export. Sometimes antique pieces in the Imperial collection were sent to Jingdezhen to be copied.
A recently excavated Ming princely burial has yielded the first example to survive until modern times of a type of gaiwan set known from 15th-century paintings. There is a blue and white Jingdezhen stem cup, that has a silver stand and a gold cover (this dated 1437), all decorated with dragons. Presumably many such sets existed, but recycling the precious metal elements was too tempting at some point, leaving only the porcelain cups. Other imperial porcelains may have carried gilding, which has now worn away.
Under the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–24), reign marks were introduced for the first time, applied to porcelain and other types of luxury products made for the imperial court. The supremacy of Jingdezhen was reinforced in the mid-15th century when the imperial kilns producing Longquan celadon, for centuries one of China's finest wares, were closed after celadons fell from fashion. Apart from the much smaller production of monochrome stoneware "official Jun" wares from Henan, used in the palace for flowerpots and the like, Jingdezhen was now the only area making imperial ceramics.
A wide variety of wares were produced for the court, with blue and white (initially ignored by the court but acceptable by 1402) accompanied by red and white wares using a copper-based underglaze red. This was sometimes combined with the cobalt blue in blue and red pieces. Under the Xuande Emperor (r. 1426–1435) a copper-red monochrome glaze was used for ceremonial wares, of which very few survive. These ceased to be produced after his death, and have never been perfectly imitated, despite later attempts. This suggests the close personal interest some emperors took in the imperial potteries, and also that some secrets must have been restricted to a small group of potters. The Ru ware of the Song dynasty had a similar pattern. In this reign enamel or overglaze decoration was developed, which was to dominate the finer wares in future centuries.
In the late Ming period, the reigns of the five emperors from 1488 to 1620, there was little innovation in styles of decoration, though some alterations in the colors used. In this period the enormous quantities of porcelain made in China seem to have led to low prices and a loss of prestige, at court and in Chinese society in general. Those who could afford to do so still ate from gold, silver or jade; it was in the Islamic world, where the Quran forbad tableware in precious metal, that rulers ate from Chinese porcelain. One disgraced official, whose goods were seized in 1562, had his valuable items confiscated, but not his collection of 45,000 pieces of porcelain, which were sold with his other effects. By the reign of the Wanli Emperor (r. 1573–1620) there was a serious decline in quality.
However the same period saw the spread of porcelain collecting among the scholar-gentry, who were mostly interested in older pieces, though generally not going further back than the Song. This is not the first period of antiquarianism and archaism in Chinese taste, but it has proved long-lasting, and had a considerable effect on subsequent production, producing waves of revivalism, imitation and much downright fakery—the three often being hard to distinguish.
Transitional wares
As the Ming dynasty declined, with serious military and financial crises, the imperial court ceased to support the official Jingdezhen kilns, which were largely left to find their own funds from other markets. This situation lasted from 1620–1683, when the new Qing dynasty, after some decades struggling with Ming forces, finally resumed large-scale use of Jingdezhen for official wares under the Kangxi emperor (r. 1662–1722). The larger kilns and a major part of the town were destroyed in 1674 by Ming forces after the Revolt of the Three Feudatories had become a civil war. From 1680 to 1688 the reconstruction of the industry was under the control of Zang Yingxuan from the Qing Board of Works. Organized production of court porcelain had resumed by 1683, and the institution of forced labor replaced by waged employment. Succeeding controllers were appointed by the provincial administration up until 1726, when Beijing appointed Nian Xiyao.
Wares of this interim period are often called "Transitional", and include the Tianqi porcelain mostly made for the Japanese market. The effect on the Jingdezhen potters was "liberating", as the range of subject matter in decoration greatly expanded. Printed books had become much more widely available, and were used, directly or indirectly, as sources for scenes on porcelain. Conveniently for the historian, many pieces began to be dated. Towards the end of the period the first famille rose porcelains appeared; the various color "families" were to dominate production for the luxury market under the Qing.
Qing
The imperial kilns were revived with 6 kilns and 23 workshops, dividing the other parts of the production process between them. Massive orders for the imperial palaces and temples resumed. While imperial taste in decoration remained somewhat conservative, the technical quality of Kangxi imperial wares reached new heights. The imperial kilns led the development of the new palettes of overglaze enamels; famille verte, developed in two phases, was followed by famille rose, and later others. There was also development of subtle, varied and mottled glazes for monochrome pieces. Sang de boeuf glaze was a copper oxide red, as was peach-bloom glaze, which was probably blown onto the piece as powder. These were the last major technical innovations at Jingdezhen, along with a technique for firing gold onto porcelain, rather than mercury gilding completed pieces.
The long reign of the Qianlong emperor (1736–1795) saw continuation of the technical perfection, but aesthetic stagnation. The emperor was a keen art collector and probably personally directed the trends in this period for imitating shapes from ancient metal-ware, especially ritual bronzes, in porcelain, as well as imitations of wood and other materials. The copying of famous wares from the distant past continued, alongside new styles. In the next two reigns the quality also declined, and orders from the palace were reduced, until the official kilns were destroyed in the Taiping Rebellion in the 1850s. Tongzhi porcelain from 1862–1874 dates from after the reconstruction of the Jingdezhen official kilns.
Major types
Jingdezhen bluish-white ware
Jingdezhen ware became particularly important from the Song period with the production of Qingbai (青白, "Blueish-white") ware. The Jingdezhen Qingbai was a transparent and jade-like type of porcelain, with a transparent glaze giving a blueish-white tint. Decoration was made by delicate carving or incising. Northern Ding ware was the most famous northern Chinese white ware under the Northern Song, but by the end of the Song period Qingbai had eclipsed Ding ware, achieving a predominance for Jingdezhen which it has maintained in subsequent centuries. A key event in this process was the flight of the remaining Northern Song court to the south, after they lost control of the north in the disastrous Jin-Song wars of the 1120s. A new Southern Song court was based in Hangzhou. This may have been accompanied by the movement of potters to Jingdezhen, which increased its output, despite being some two hundred miles from the new capital.
A Qingbai porcelain bottle from Jingdezhen is the earliest piece of Chinese porcelain documented to have reached Europe; this is the Fonthill Vase, which was brought to Europe in the middle of the 14th century.
Under the Yuan dynasty, Jingdezhen's finest whitewares changed to Shufu ware, named after the two character inscription on some pieces. Shufu may mean the pieces were ordered for the Shumiyuan ("Privy Council"); despite this, most examples have appeared outside China. The Shufu pieces are thick, with an opaque white glaze, with a faint blue-green tint. The stem cup shape first appears in these; it lasted until the end of the Ming.
Jingdezhen blue-and-white porcelain
From the mid-14th century, Jingdezhen began to mass-produce underglaze blue porcelain, whose development it pioneered, making it "one of the world's earliest industrial towns". Much of this was for export, and other styles were produced for the Chinese market. Elaborately-painted wares were not in the traditional court taste, but they evidently came to be accepted. The large round serving-plates, from 40 cm across, which are now among the most valued pieces, reflect the needs of Middle Eastern rather than Chinese food service, which generally uses large numbers of smaller and deeper bowls, then as now. Wares for export also often had thicker bodies, to reduce breakages on long travels to the export markets. In early periods, the markets receiving porcelain direct from China included Japan, all of South-East Asia, and much of the Islamic world, but did not include Europe on a regular basis. Until the 17th century, Europe normally only received porcelain via the Islamic world.
The blue pigment was derived from cobalt oxide, which had been imported sporadically from Persia in earlier periods. From the 14th century regular imports of the pigment were obtained from Persia. The cobalt was ground and mixed with a medium, then painted onto the dried bodies of the pots, which were then glazed and fired. At a later date a source of cobalt was found within China; this differed from the Persian ore in the proportion of associated manganese. The color on the fired pots was a grey-blue rather than a pure blue. By mixing three parts Persian ore to two parts Chinese a rich and soft blue was produced, which became labelled as 'Sumatran' or 'Muhammadan' blue.
One of the largest intact early collections of exported Chinese porcelain was at the Ardabil Shrine, and is now in the National Museum of Iran. This has 805 pieces of porcelain, donated by Shah Abbas I in 1607–1608, from the Persian royal collection. Most were made in Jingdezhen, and they covered the full period of blue and white wares to that point, with some nearly 300 years old when donated. The largely intact Ottoman collection is mostly in Topkapi Palace.
The restriction of painted subjects to the combination of abstract geometrical patterns, plant-forms, and animals had begun to end during the first half of the 15th century, as human figures, landscape scenes and other subjects began to appear. In the best wares, these designs were supplied by court artists and reflected contemporary painting and other media. This trend continued in Transitional porcelain, produced for a period up to 1683 at the end of the Ming dynasty, and the later blue and white wares of the Kangxi reign are the final phase in the artistic development of blue and white, with superb technical quality in the best objects, and larger images, flexibly treated, on a wide variety of subjects.
Tianqi porcelain is a type of relatively informal ware, largely destined for the Japanese market, made at Jingdezhen in the 17th century. Kraak ware is a type of Jingdezhen export porcelain produced mainly during the Wanli reign (1573–1620), but also in the remaining two Ming reigns. It was among the first Chinese ware to arrive in Europe in mass quantities. Strictly defined, it "is distinguished by the arrangement of its ornament into panels; these usually radiate to a bracketed rim notorious for its liability to chip". It was mostly made as "deep bowls and wide dishes", decorated with motifs from nature, in a style not used on wares for the domestic Chinese market.