Blanc de Chine vs Iznik Pottery
ブラン・ド・シーヌ（徳化白磁） / イズニク陶器
Both sit in Ceramic Styles, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Blanc de Chine
Blanc de Chine is the European name for the white porcelain fired at the Dehua kilns in Fujian. Nothing is painted on it, so the whole effect rests on a milky, faintly bluish glaze and on bodies pressed in piece moulds with details modelled separately and applied by hand. Guanyin figures and libation cups copied from carved rhinoceros horn became its signature pieces.
Iznik Pottery
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The pottery reached by the Ottoman kilns, setting brilliant blue and red on a white body. Tulips and carnations turn in spirals around the curve of the vessel, and on the wall tiles of a mosque geometry and plant ornament coexist on a single surface.
| Blanc de Chine | Iznik Pottery | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Ming dynasty– | 15th–17th century |
| Family | Ceramic Styles | Ceramic Styles |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | No painted decoration anywhere, so the surface stays a single white / A thick glaze that shifts from milky to faintly blue, translucent where it thins / Seams where separately modelled hands, fingers or drapery were pressed onto a moulded body / Libation cups with a wide mouth and narrow base, copying a section of carved horn | The brilliance of a white body under transparent glaze / Cobalt blue and a red that stands in relief / Spiralling plant ornament / A continuous composition turning around a curved surface |
| Best used for | Finishing porcelain tableware or lighting with glaze depth alone, no print and no colour · Producing ceramic figures in quantity by combining piece moulds with hand-modelled details | Turning a pattern around a curved surface without a break · Getting density and brilliance from a limited palette |
| Type | Keep lettering off the surface, and put at most a small mark under the foot. | If you use lettering, run it as a band and give it the same rank as the ground pattern. |
| Composition | Frontal standing figures on one vertical axis from base to crown, with empty space left around them. | Pair a composition radiating from the center with a band at the rim. |
| Material | Fine white porcelain clay under a thick clear glaze with no pigment, so light and shade come only from where the glaze pools and thins. | Transparent glaze over a white body, with the red raised to give relief. |
| Caution | Softening every ridge in the belief that white alone reads as refined removes the places where glaze pools, and the object flattens into a blank white lump. | Tiling the ornament flat loses the logic of the vessel. The handling of the curve and the rim is the pivot of the style. |