Rising Clouds Teaware Set (Teapot with Four of Tea Cups)

 The Porcelain of Jingdezhen

Jingde town (Jingdezhen) has been hailed as China’s Capital of Porcelain for centuries, it is situated at the northeastern part of Jiangxi province and lies on the south bank of Chang River, thus was called Changnan (meaning south of Chang). The main ingredient of porcelain - kaolin was mined from the Kaolin Hill in its suburb, craftsmen used it to produce ceramics which were described as being “as white as jade” and became the favourite porcelain ware of various Chinese emperors
throughout the history. In 1004 - 1007 AD, emperor of North Song Dynasty ordered the town to provide
porcelain wares for his royal court, he even renamed Changnan with the era name of his reign “Jingde”, the new name has been used up to this date. Allegedly, Changnan gave birth to the English name of the country, it is said that ancient foreign
ceramics traders bought the porcelain here and called them Changnan wares, the name became “chinaware” when it entered English and thus the whole country is called China.

Historical records show that Jingde town began to make porcelain at the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) and rose to fame during the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD), in the following Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD) it is particularly renowned for its celadon and white porcelain products.
Blue-and-white porcelain started to emerge during the Mongolian-reigned Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and further developed in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), paving the way for the perfection of coloured porcelain. The first half of Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) saw Jingde town reached the peak of its craftsmanship, products were exquisitely painted in single-colour or multi-colour drawing with intricate designs, the level of artistic refinement was unparalleled in crockery history.