I Have Heard Lots Of Sayings Over The Years But,

'if you want to go broke, make red glaze porcelain', was one I have never heard of before,

it appears that it is a popular saying among porcelain makers, making a red glaze piece of porcelain is pretty close to impossible and could be life threatening if you as a porcelain maker fail in your task, red-glazed porcelain was invented as the result of a happy accident, in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), bronze was widely used in Changsha kilns to make porcelain green, and it was discovered that different firing temperatures made some porcelain red,


a popular local legend says even their blood was sacrificed for their craft, according to the story, Emperor Xuanzong in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) wanted to use red porcelain to worship the sun god, and issued an imperial decree ordering the Jingdezhen kiln to produce it, after many attempts, the craftsmen failed to produce satisfactory porcelain and were whipped, thrown into prison, and threatened with death if they didn't produce what the emperor desired,


generations of Jingdezhen people endeavoured to produce the porcelain in the following hundreds of years, but Jihong porcelain was never successfully reproduced, from the Ming Dynasty when Jihong porcelain was first produced, generations of Jingdezhen porcelain craftsmen have made numerous attempts to manufacture Jihong, but the results have not been as good, but today with temperature controlled kilns red is now the colour, but if I ever hear the phrase 'if you want to go broke, make red glaze porcelain', at least I now know what it means!