Structural study of black and white porcelain from Jin dynasty (112-1234 AD)

The objective of the current proposal is to carry out similar investigations on black and white porcelains which were produced in large quantity but from local raw materials and mainly intended for local markets. These productions are an interesting example of manufacturing fine objects from inexpensive materials of variable quality. The rather complex and heterogeneous microstructure of decors, coming from the use of weakly refined materials, is an invaluable source of information concerning the manufacturing processes. Moreover, these productions were not managed by the central power such as more prestigious productions; their study is also a good an appropriate way to investigate the local traditions and specifically to study how craftsmen were able to take advantage of their local resource. In order to analyse the entire complex structure of those porcelains, we propose to perform hierarchical imagings by scanning X-ray microscope on ID21 of a selection of samples.