Kong Xiangqing

01 · Lineage & Regional School

He was born into a family of Jun porcelain makers and studied under his father, Kong Tieshan; he began working on Jun porcelain research and production in 1978. Within the regional tradition and school record of Jun Porcelain Firing Craftsmanship in Yuzhou, Henan: The Jun porcelain firing craft is centered on Yuzhou City, Henan Province; the ancient Jun Terrace lies in the northeast of Yuzhou City, hence the kiln name 'Juntai Kiln,' abbreviated as 'Jun Kiln.' Because the kiln site is near the ancient Jun Terrace of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, it was named the 'Juntai Kiln.' As Jun-kiln craftsmen scattered far and wide, the Jun porcelain firing craft gradually spread to various places. After the founding of New China, Jun porcelain production entered a period of comprehensive restoration. The Yuzhou City Cultural Center is the protecting unit of the item. Jun porcelain is one of the five great famous porcelains of the Song dynasty—Jun, Ru, Guan, Ge, and Ding. It was first created in the Tang dynasty and flourished in the Northern Song dynasty, and its unique kiln-transmutation craft holds a style of its own in Chinese ceramic firing technology. During the Huizong reign of the Northern Song dynasty, the government set up an official kiln in the northeast of present-day Yuzhou City, Henan Province, to fire tribute porcelain for the imperial palace. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty, the Jun kiln ceased firing. During the Jin and Yuan periods, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Shanxi, and other places all imitated Jun porcelain, but due to factors such as raw materials, their artistic achievement could not match that of the Song-dynasty official kiln In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Jun porcelain production developed slowly.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Born in February 1963 in Yuzhou, Henan Province, he is a man of the Han ethnic group. He is a national representative bearer of Jun porcelain firing craftsmanship, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a technician of Jun porcelain firing. After years of effort he has achieved notable results in the glaze colour, formal design and firing methods of Jun porcelain. Drawing boldly on the essence of the traditional craft and combining it with modern art, he has created many works with the artistic character of the present age, of which Yu Hu Chun (Spring in a Jade Flask) is one representative example. He has devoted himself to research on Jun porcelain glaze formulas, so that many glaze colours lost for years have been restored, including gold-flecked glaze, turquoise blue, peacock blue, gold green, pearl colour and firework colour. He has also researched and developed new glaze varieties such as star glaze, landscape red, phoenix-tail colour and imperial pigeon grey. Within the documented technical tradition of Jun Porcelain Firing Craftsmanship in Yuzhou, Henan: Because the kiln site is near the ancient Jun Terrace (Juntai) of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, it was named the 'Juntai Kiln,' abbreviated as the 'Jun Kiln,' and the porcelain it produced is named 'Jun porcelain.' As Jun-kiln craftsmen scattered far and wide, the Jun porcelain firing craft gradually spread to various places. compared with the products. After the founding of New China, Jun porcelain production entered a period of comprehensive restoration. The Ren-family and Lu-family Jun-porcelain lineages—such as Lu Guangdong and Lu Guangwen—contributed their ancestral secret techniques, making contributions to the development of Jun porcelain. The reason Jun porcelain is so prized, apart from its vigorous, dignified forms, lies chiefly in two aspects: first, during firing Jun porcelain exhibits a kiln-transmutation phenomenon; glazes containing copper, after transmutation, form glaze colors such as begonia red, cinnabar red, and rooster-blood red, which permeate and reflect one another in mutual brilliance—hence the saying 'one color entering the kiln, ten thousand colors leaving it'; second, the Jun porcelain crafting process is complex, with a low yield rate; a single piece of Jun porcelain passes through 72 process steps from material selection to firing. In recent years, with the spread of mechanization technology in the ceramics industry and the application of natural-gas and electric kilns, the traditional Jun porcelain firing craft has gradually declined, and both its cultural connotation and artistic quality show a downward trend, making the protection of the traditional Jun porcelain firing craft urgent. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Archival Account of Craft Procedures": complex, with a low yield rate; a single piece of Jun porcelain passes through 72 process steps from material selection to firing.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He attaches great importance to training successors; more than thirty of his disciples hold intermediate or higher professional technical titles, and more than ten of them are mainstays of the field.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Kong Xiangqing · National Representative Bearer Archive