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Re: Re: Re: dragon jar

Posted By: Judy
Posted Date: Nov 29, 2006 (04:44 PM)

Message
Arjan,

The first tipoff to printing is the element around the top of the shoulder, 3 on each face. They look identical, and are something taken from another design, possibly a border around a plate or something similar.

Another tipoff is you can see no texturing to the design at all--no brush strokes. Edges of the images may be slightly blurry.

The frequently used printing technique was to use either a mechanical printing press or woodblocks to lay ink in a design on a thin piece of paper. Many many of these would be printed, one for each item to be decorated. After this has dried it is either laid down, pigmented-side down, on the piece to be decorated and then wetted, or wetted first.

On items with concave surfaces, such as bowls, plates, saucers, you can sometimes see where the piece of paper creased because it was being adapted to a non-flat surface. Sometimes you can see a little break in the design where the paper creased or tore in the process of being handled.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Judy

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