Jingdezhen Porcelain in the Making:

Watch a unique animation using 18th-century watercolour paintings.

The National Museum of Korea recently collaborated with the Hong Kong Maritime Museum (HKMM) using their collection Trading China: Paintings of the Porcelain Production Process in the Qing Dynasty, to produce a beautiful interactive animation. It is currently on display in HKMM’s newly-opened World Ceramics Gallery, but you can view it here.

The collection of 34 watercolour paintings is unique, showing the various steps required in the production of ceramics (two examples are shown below) from the initial mining of the clay through the many required steps until the finished ceramics’ final packaging for delivery. Each watercolour is accompanied by an excellent explanatory text in both Korean and English that details what is happening in the picture. The collection was a very generous gift to HKMM from Mrs. Susan Chen Hardy.

Courtesy of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.
Courtesy of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum

The Hong Kong Maritime Museum was closed during Covid, but during closure, produced a virtual gallery walk that featured four objects from their “Canton Trade and Opium Wars” collection, narrated in Chinese by Mr. K. L. Tam. Worth watching for the artefacts alone even if you don’t understand Chinese and we’ll hope for English subtitles in the future. The museum has happily reopened. More information can be found here.