My project The Art of Imitation: Renaissance Ceramics in the style of Ming Porcelain examines the practice of imitating porcelain in Italian Renaissance pottery workshops and the reception of these imitations. Due to a growing appreciation of rare, imported porcelain, early sixteenth-century Italian potters appropriated and developed techniques of covering their brownish-red earthenware vessels in white, tin-glazes, followed by the addition of blue decoration. These imitations lacked the technical refinement of light, kaolinite vessels from China, but the outward appearance satisfied aesthetic demands. For this project I would like to explore the possibilities of spatial history and mapping in order to demonstrate trade patterns of true porcelain. I would also like to create visualizations of data related to existing inventories of ceramics in the Renaissance.

Blue and White Dish with Merchant Ship. Tin-glazed earthenware. Cafaggiolo. c. 1510.

Source: Project