Gutaoci Restoration Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The formation of the ancient ceramic restoration craft in Shanghai is directly tied to the city's collecting landscape. After the port opened in the modern era, ancient ceramic artworks poured into Shanghai in large numbers through maritime imports and commercial transfers, and both private collectors and trading houses needed their damaged wares repaired, turning restoration from an occasional, sporadic need into a standing trade. In the late Qing and early Republic period the work relied largely on family-run handicraft workshops; in the 1950s and 1960s it moved into the conservation workshops of cultural and museum institutions, where it gradually crystallized into a fixed set of procedures.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The ancient ceramic restoration craft is a traditional technique that comprehensively applies organic materials, chemically synthesized materials, and molding tools to restore damaged cultural relics and artworks to their original form. Since the opening of the port, Shanghai, as a major distribution center for artworks, saw Western restoration concepts, advanced process techniques, and chemical materials collide with traditional restoration craft, giving rise to a distinctive ancient ceramic restoration craft. The emergence and development of Shanghai's ancient ceramic restoration craft is built on the making, firing, collecting, and transmission of ceramics across the dynasties, synthesizing many related skills such as modeling, sculpture, calligraphy, painting, and chemical materials. The ancient ceramic restoration craft mainly includes the following steps: brushing off loose soil and removing impurities, then clearing the earth-rust stains on the fragments; fixing each fragment one by one using the method of local-before-overall and interior-before-surface; using molding materials to fill missing parts, and once the body has dried and hardened, refining it with restoration knives and then finely sanding with wood sandpaper; leveling the seams at the joints and restoring the color and texture of the restored object through color adjustment and painting; and, by effective technical means, striving as far as possible to make the old look old. Its distinctive feature lies in the porcelain-matching technique, that is, artificially firing a porcelain component that matches the original damaged piece; through bonding, priming, and coloring, the repaired piece gains stronger adhesion, a longer preservation life, and a better viewing effect. First, the ancient ceramic restoration craft must draw on tools from fine arts and carpentry, absorbing the characteristics of mold-casting and airbrush tools, to suit the restoration difficulties of each individual object. Second, it must follow the three principles of restoration: minimal intervention, material reversibility, and making the old look old. China's ancient ceramic treasures are precious wealth of human civilization; the ancient ceramic restoration craft fuses many arts such as form, sculpture, color, calligraphy, and painting. It not only provides new perspectives for ceramic aesthetics but also offers an important basis for the theoretical development of ancient ceramic making, authentication, and restoration, and is an important component of the traditional craft of the Chinese nation.
Documented Process Records
Since the opening of the port, Shanghai, as a major distribution center for artworks, saw Western restoration concepts, advanced process techniques, and chemical materials collide with traditional restoration craft, giving rise to a distinctive ancient ceramic restoration craft.
Fitting purpose-made replacement parts
Replacement parts are fired to match the broken original and then joined, filled and coloured so that the seam is strong, durable and only visible on close inspection.
Joining from the small parts to the whole
Fragments are fixed piece by piece from small parts to the whole and from the inside out; breaks are filled with moulding material, carved back after drying, sanded with fine paper, and the joins levelled and colour-matched.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Shanghai's ancient ceramic restoration craft takes Shanghai Municipality as its main area of dissemination, with Changning District as the seat of its protecting unit. The municipal cultural-relics conservation workshops and the restoration programs of academic institutions stand side by side; the artifact-conservation departments of the Shanghai Museum as well as the restoration sites of museums in Beijing and the capital have frequently had technicians trained in Shanghai participating. From the 1930s onward, family workshops took on the restoration of privately held collections, passing the craft into private hands; afterward, schools and cultural institutions opened restoration courses, and since 1995 Jiang Daoyin has served as the lead instructor of the national-level ancient porcelain restoration training course.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Gutaoci Restoration Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Shanghai is the cradle of China's modern industry; the gathering of wealth and talent once made Shanghai 'half the country' of China's ancient ceramic collecting. Since the late Qing and early Republic there has been a tradition of ancient ceramic restoration, which gradually formed a complete set of restoration methods and procedures. These were successively inherited and practiced by the family handicraft workshops of the 1930s, the conservation workshops of cultural institutions in the 1950s, and the artifact-restoration department established by the Shanghai Museum, and were used to restore several hundred precious ancient ceramic artworks for institutions such as the National Museum, the Capital Museum, and the Shanghai Museum, as well as for many collectors at home and abroad. At present, this craft is being transmitted through school education and the practice of cultural institutions, carried forward and developed in the new era. Jiang Daoyin (from the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in August 1946, from Shanghai Municipality. Representative inheritor of the ancient ceramic restoration craft, a fifth-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project. Senior master craftsman of ancient ceramic restoration. Served successively as council member and standing council member of the Cultural Relic Restoration Committee of the China Cultural Relic Society. After mastering the traditional craft, he gradually combined Chinese traditional techniques with advanced foreign materials and processes, forming a rigorous and scientific style of artifact restoration. In 1993 he successfully trial-produced the porcelain-on-porcelain restoration method, increasing the post-restoration lifespan of porcelain severalfold. Over the decades he has restored more than 600 national-level cultural relics and published nearly 100 articles. Since 2012 he has served as the discipline leader of the artifact-restoration program at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. Since 1995 he has served as lead instructor each year at the national ancient-porcelain restoration training course, training intermediate and advanced restoration personnel.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Jiang Daoyin 05-2897
- Yang Yun
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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