Chinese Ceramics are some of the most beautiful pieces of artwork in my opinion. The craftsman who make these ceramics put in very hard work and in the end it looks great. What goes on behind the scenes though? Is there more to this ceramics then we know? How much did they make?
In the sixteenth century, there were about 300 craftsman working in Jingdezhen. Craftsman who made vessels or large jars made about 0.03 tael and 5 copper cash. For reference, 1/1000 of a tael is equal to 1 copper cash. The salary of the other different types of workers was very similar to the salary of the craftsman. What about the division of labor?
To make these different types of ceramics was no easy task. These ceramics were made by highly skilled craftsman. However the division of labor made this hard to complete. ideally, the craftsman would work on the making the ceramics while workers who were not as good making the ceramics would do another job. The way the jobs were divided did make it easy for craftsman to do their work. they ended having to do tasks other should have done since the workers on the lower end of the totem poll could not properly do their job. All these factors combined made the ceramic industry very tough to work in.
References
Gerritsen, Anne. The City of Blue and White : Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
