Guangcai, also known as "Guangdong color" or "Guangdong weaving gold color", is a kind of export porcelain that began to be produced during the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, when the name was "foreign color", during the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, Guangzhou has become the most active city in China, known as the "South Library of the Son of Heaven". Foreign businessmen ordered a large number of painted porcelain in Guangzhou. In order to meet the specific requirements of foreign merchants for ornamentation and the convenience of delivery, Chinese merchants set up a processing factory in Guangzhou, bought fired white porcelain from Jingdezhen, painted and painted on it, and sold it directly overseas after firing. This is the origin of Guangcai. Later, the ** of white porcelain tires gradually diversified, not all from Jingdezhen.
However, in the ceramic literature of the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there is no record of "Guangcai", only recorded as "foreign color". As contained in "Tao Shuo":
Ancient porcelain colorful, into the kiln for the most, with a point dyeing vivid, there are those who come out of the Danqing family, the painting hand is solid high, the painting material is also fine, now increase the foreign color a kind, gorgeous and dazzling.
Today's painting is tenth, then the foreign color is four, the sketch is three, the antique is two, and the brocade is also one.
It shows that in the Qianlong period, "foreign color" has accounted for a large proportion. Until the early days, some ceramic works had the name of "Guangcai", separating it from the pastel and colorful porcelain of the Qing Dynasty.
From the point of view of technology, Guangcai porcelain and five-color porcelain, pastel porcelain are glaze colored porcelain, but Guangcai porcelain is mainly export porcelain, porcelain shape, decoration, color and other aspects to adapt to the order requirements of foreign businessmen, thus forming a different style from domestic colored porcelain. For example, there are many kinds of color materials used in Guangcai, most of which are self-made or reconfigured by Guangzhou artists, such as water blue, west red, red, green, jute and other colors, all of which are different from Jingdezhen colorful and pastel colors. The patterns used are mainly the traditional melons, fruits, flowers and birds of Guangdong folk patterns, and imitate the brocade pattern, and use gold as the brocade ground on the porcelain (called "weaving gold" in the jargon), after the color burning, the pattern is densely covered with the body, gorgeous and brilliant, gorgeous and brilliant. The products are mainly plates, bowls and other daily porcelain, supplemented by furnishing porcelain, and exported in large quantities.
Some Cantonese porcelain is painted with foreign patterns, which are custom-made by foreign merchants. There are also some porcelains that are ordered by foreign merchants for foreign royal families and nobles, and they are painted with foreign coats of arms, indicating that these porcelains are exclusively used by foreign royal families and nobles, which has the meaning of Chinese official kiln porcelain.
The research of heirlooms has confirmed that Guangcai began in Yongzheng and was mass-produced in the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods. This kind of colored porcelain style is special, with red, yellow, green, purple, lotus (snow blue) and other colors, used more is lotus lotus color and gold color, the color is light, the production is fine, the tone can cater to the preferences of Westerners, is the main feature of Yongzheng Guangcai porcelain. Yongzheng Guangcai ware has few heirlooms left in China, and has become an important material for the study of export porcelain.