Hua Fengxiang and His Three-hundred-Year Zisha Tradition

Zisha is a special purple-hued stoneware particular to Jiangsu Province, China. Common Zisha wares are mainly pots, followed by miscellaneous items such as flowerpots and water jars. Most Zisha is round, square, or of other simple geometric shapes and is used as a vessel to brew tea in the ‘loosing tea method’ during tea ceremonies. Boiling water is added to tea leaves in the purple clay pot, creating tea soup mixed with tea leaves and tea water. This method has the advantage of preventing the tea leaves from soaking in the tea water for too long, which can make the tea it too thick and even bitter in taste.

The method of making Zisha pots differs from other ceramic techniques. Using the ‘slab method’, a large wooden hammer is used to beat the Zisha clay into a rectangular ‘clay piece’ about five centimetres thick. This is then surrounded with a round piece of Zisha clay, and the end and the beginning are connected with slip to form the sides of the pot. The cover and the bottom are also made of round purple clay, adhered with slip to the aforementioned ‘sides’ to form a sphere. The construction of the square Zisha pot is perhaps easier to understand, as it consists of six rectangles stuck together to become a rectangular body. In the field of ceramics this is called the ‘slab method’. There are also other common methods in the field of ceramic, such as ‘throwing’, ‘pinching’, ‘decorating with moulds’, and ‘slip casting,’ which are also easier to learn and do well.

China’s Zisha pots date as far back as the Ming dynasty (1363–1644), and many famous Zisha masters emerged in the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Extant Zisha pots, many excavated from burial sites, are mostly geometrically shaped plain wares (undecorated and simple in form). From the late 17th to the 18th century, during three Qing dynasties (Kangxi [1662–1722], Yongzheng [1723–35], and Qianlong [1736–95]), the painted style of Jingdezhen porcelain flourished, not only because the Manchu royal family of the Qing dynasty embraced aesthetics that pursued complexity and prosperity, but also because of the influence of European aesthetics. Glaze decorations began to appear on the outside of Zisha. The coloured glaze of Huapai Zisha, painted on plain fired pots or on the full body, imitated porcelain glaze. Hua Fengxiang (1662–1735), the founder of Huapai Zisha, was born during the reign of Emperor Kangxi and was well versed in making square Zisha pots. Hua Fengxiang supplied Zisha pots mainly to the Office of Internal Affairs of the Qing Royal Palace. The Han square pots with robin’s egg blue glaze at the Nanjing Museum are representative of Hua Fengxiang’s work. The Nanjing Museum’s archives record them as an old collection of its old museum. The book Notes on the Southern Wares, written in the Qianlong period, notes that “the robin’s egg blue glaze is fired in the furnace, and the colour flowing with red dots is the best. Those with the green dot take the second place.”

Hanfang teapot
Hua Fengxiang (1662–1735), China, Jiangsu province; Qing dynasty, Kangxi reign (1662–1722)
Zisha stoneware with Lujun glaze
21.8 x 13.3 cm
Nanjing Museum

The Art Museum of the Chinese University of Hong Kong also has a square Han pot made by Hua Fengxiang that is a valuable extant example of his work (1991.0080). Once part of the personal collection of Bei Shan Tang, it was donated to the museum by the Bei Shan Tang Foundation. The work is dated to the early years of the 18th century. The two large Han square pots from the Kangxi to Jiaqing (1796–1820) years, unearthed in the old city of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province (including the teahouse site), bear the same seal. The Han square pot on the ‘Taixing’ shipwreck, which sank in Indonesia in the first year of the Daoguang period (1821) and was recovered in May 1999, also has the same square seal. The Hua Fengxiang enamels in the Palace Museum, Beijing, are known as Zisha pots from the Kangxi and Yongzheng periods. The base of the Huapai product is marked ‘made by Jingxi Hua Fengxiang’ and ‘made by Hua Fengxiang’. In addition to the regular mark, marks of workshop owners and great masters have also been observed on these pieces over the ages.

Zhang Zhidong, who lived in the late Qing dynasty, once customized a Huapai Zisha pot and inscribed the hall name for it in ‘Making Wares, Enhancing Morality and Cultivating Character’. In the early years of the 20th century, Hua Zhenxiang, the inheritor of Huapai, took orders and participated in the Nanyang Industrial Exposition. The Travelogues of the Nanyang Industrial Exposition, published by the Shanghai Commercial Press in 1910, records that the pottery part of the display comprised the glazed Zisha made by Hua Zhenxiang. It also notes that there was variety within the purple clay wares, with abundant lists, various patterns, and elegant colours. By then the purple clay with coloured glaze had become famous throughout the world, and its styles and patterns had become more sophisticated. Certainly Hua Zhenxiang’s products spread widely throughout Southeast Asia. In the middle of the 20th century, the inheritor Hua Guanqun (1931–98) was skilled at making decorations that imitate the forms of animals and plants and at producing purple clay pots with naturalistic forms by using different materials, including purple clay with different mineral colour reagents. Many artisans began to imitate his style, including flowers, birds, fish, and insects as decorations. This specific kind of Zisha pot, ‘flower potteries of different colours’, began to dominate production. Hua Guanqun’s works such as Teapot with the Three Friends of Winter Pot, Gu Nuan Cup, and others are sought after by collectors throughout Asia.

*Teapot With The Three Friends of Winter*
Guanqun Hua (1931–98), China, 1970
Raw ore Zisha purple clay, dark green clay, black clay, and satin clay
9.5 x 19 x 10 cm

Teapot in the shape of Aladdin’s lamp
Yingying Qian (b. 1984), China, 2010
9 x 15 x 11 cm
Raw ore Zisha purple clay
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The artistic style of Huapai Zisha has evolved from plain wares in the early years of the Qing dynasty to those decorated with coloured glaze; from plain and unadorned stoneware to those that are dazzlingly bright due to the decoration of glaze. At the later stage, different colours of purple clay decorated the outside of the vessel, with naturalistic designs that echo the ancient Greek aesthetic idea of mimesis. From a tribute for the Kangxi Emperor in the late 17th century to a diplomatic gift presented by the People’s Republic of China in the 21st century, Huapai Zisha has long been treasured as China’s distinct tradition of purple clay pots.

Yingying Qian is a ceramic artist and a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Nanjing University. Qiuhong Qian is a ceramic artist.

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