Chinese Craft Stories NATIONAL HERITAGE INVENTORY
Home / Bearers / Roster record

Huang Junjun

KetongTraditional Fine ArtsYingtanshiguixi, JiangxiBatch 6 (2025)

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Huang Junjun, Male, Han, from Yingtanshiguixi, Jiangxi, is a sixth-batch national representative bearer of Ketong (Ⅶ-120). The tradition is documented in Yingtanshiguixi, Jiangxi. Within the regional tradition and school record of Ketong in Yingtanshiguixi, Jiangxi: Guixi chiseled copper carving is a traditional metal engraving craft practiced within Guixi County, Yingtan City, Jiangxi Province, using the chisel as a 'brush' and the purple copper plate as 'paper.' Chiseled copper trades have existed in Guixi since the Chongzhen reign of the Ming dynasty; by the late Qing and early Republican period, chisel workshops stood facing one another inside and outside the city, and the copper vessels they made mostly served ancestral halls and shrines, wedding dowries, and studio curios. In recent years, enterprises such as Jiangxi Zhongding Metal Craft Co., Ltd. have combined traditional chiseling with mechanical processing, allowing the craft to continue in Buddhist worship and custom furniture. It has a long history, beginning in the Chongzhen reign of the Ming dynasty, and has been transmitted for more than three hundred years to the present.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

The bearer record for Huang Junjun is anchored in the documented technical standards of Ketong in Yingtanshiguixi, Jiangxi. Within the documented technical tradition of Ketong in Yingtanshiguixi, Jiangxi: Guixi chiseled copper carving is a traditional metal engraving craft practiced within Guixi County, Yingtan City, Jiangxi Province. Using the chisel as a 'brush' and the purple copper plate as 'paper,' it integrates forging, design, drawing, and chiseling. Guixi chiseled copper carving combines painting and carving. Using flat chisels, incising chisels, arc chisels, single-line chisels, curved chisels, shaping chisels, bead-point (fish-roe pattern) chisels, stipple chisels, punch chisels, and other chisels, and employing flat carving, relief, openwork carving, engraving, and pierced carving, the artisan relies on the dexterous movement of the fingers and the back-and-forth motion of the wrist to strike light, heavy, fast, and slow marks on the copper plate, producing patterns of varied character with fine, delicate lines. Guixi chiseled copper carving is the art of welding heat, chisel, and copper, standing between flat painting and three-dimensional sculpture. Its patterns rise and fall in relief, full and vigorous, plain yet weighty, vividly lifelike, and visually striking, with strong artistic tension. Its ornament is layered in tiers, revealing an antique elegance; the principal motifs are Tang-style scrolling vines, baoxiang flowers, and entwined lotuses, while the subjects are mostly figures from ancient historical stories, animals symbolizing auspiciousness, flowers, birds, fish, insects, and landscapes, all carrying auspicious meaning. Because Mount Longhu within its territory is the birthplace of Taoism, the chiseled copper ritual implements used in Taoist fasting and offering ceremonies and other Taoist elements have deeply influenced the craft. The Guixi chiseled copper carving process is elaborate, divided into more than ten steps: design drafting; material selection and pattern transfer (including material selection, pattern transfer, and cutting); chisel work (including flat-chisel line engraving, annealing, raising relief forms, making and applying the glue, fine chiseling and refinement, and removing the glue and annealing); and forming and decoration (including shaping, polishing and grinding, forming, and coloring). Guixi chiseled copper carving is plain yet weighty, naturally elegant, rich in popular aesthetic appeal, and highly visually impactful and artistically moving. It is close to the life of the common people; its chiseled images and texts are full of the characteristics of their times, artistically expressing the folk customs and aesthetic tastes of each era and embodying the people's wishes for a better life. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Archival Record of Process Steps": The Guixi chiseled copper carving process is elaborate, divided into more than ten steps: design drafting; material selection and pattern transfer (including material selection, pattern transfer, and cutting); chisel work (including flat-chisel line engraving, annealing, raising relief forms, making and applying the glue, fine chiseling and refinement, and removing the glue and annealing); and forming and decoration (including shaping, polishing and grinding, forming, and coloring). "The chasing tools": Flat, cutting, arc, one-stroke, curved, shaping, fish-roe, seed and punch chases are used in relief, openwork and engraving, driven by the fingers and turned by the wrist. "Tang vine, lotus and interlaced motifs": Its layered motifs of vine, rosette and lotus carry historic figures and auspicious animals, standing out in high, firm and archaic relief. "Fire, tool and copper": Chasing is fire, tool and copper together, standing between painting and sculpture, with solder fixing the work before the tool builds light and shade.

Archival Record of Process Steps

The Guixi chiseled copper carving process is elaborate, divided into more than ten steps: design drafting; material selection and pattern transfer (including material selection, pattern transfer, and cutting); chisel work (including flat-chisel line engraving, annealing, raising relief forms, making and applying the glue, fine chiseling and refinement, and removing the glue and annealing); and forming and decoration (including shaping, polishing and grinding, forming, and coloring).

The chasing tools

Flat, cutting, arc, one-stroke, curved, shaping, fish-roe, seed and punch chases are used in relief, openwork and engraving, driven by the fingers and turned by the wrist.

Tang vine, lotus and interlaced motifs

Its layered motifs of vine, rosette and lotus carry historic figures and auspicious animals, standing out in high, firm and archaic relief.

Fire, tool and copper

Chasing is fire, tool and copper together, standing between painting and sculpture, with solder fixing the work before the tool builds light and shade.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2025, Huang Junjun was announced in the sixth batch of national representative bearers for Ketong, with Yingtanshiguixi, Jiangxi as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Ketong in Yingtanshiguixi, Jiangxi: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2021 (batch 5), with Yingtanshiguixi, Jiangxi as its declared area, and Jiangxi Zhongdingjinshugongyi Co., Ltd. as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

Historical origin

It has a long history, beginning in the Chongzhen reign of the Ming dynasty, and has been transmitted for more than three hundred years to the present.

Declared area
Yingtanshiguixi, Jiangxi
Safeguarding unit
Jiangxi Zhongdingjinshugongyi Co., Ltd.
Inscription batch
Batch 5 (2021)
Item code
Ⅶ-120
Category
Traditional Fine Arts

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.

BearerDeclared areaRoster codeRelation
Du PingFuyang, Anhui05-2719Other regional school
Huang JunjunYingtanshiguixi, Jiangxi—This page

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

  1. Huangjunjun (Yingtanshiguixi, Jiangxi) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Huangjunjun · China ICH Official Archive

This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records and the associated project dossier, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。