Hongbaozhai 弘宝斋

The House

Ru porcelain takes its name from Ruzhou in Henan. Official materials record it as beginning in the mid-Tang, flourishing in the Northern Song, and standing at the head of the Song's five classic wares — official materials quote the saying that the Ru kiln is their chief (ru yao wei kui). In the Song it was made for the court, and after the Jin invasion drove the potters south the technique was lost for about eight hundred years.

Recovery began at the county factory. A revival Ru ware factory opened at Linru in 1938, was taken over by the county government in 1948, and became the local state-run Linru Ru ware factory in 1952; in 1957 it was charged with restoring Ru ware, and in 1958 a bean-green glaze was fired successfully. In 1962 Ma Yongjie, a graduate of the Zhengzhou Arts Institute, joined the factory as head of its Ru ware experiment group and took part in the whole of the restoration work. In 1964 bean-green glazed products passed appraisal by the province's science and light-industry authorities, and the Hongbao brand was created.

In 1996 Wang Zhenfang and Fan Suizhou, who had studied under Ma Yongjie, founded the Hongbao Ru ware studio with Ma as technical adviser. Working from little surviving documentation, they developed four Ru glaze colours — tianqing (sky-blue), fenqing (powder-blue), doulü (bean-green), and yuebai (moon-white) — and more than a hundred vessel forms.

In 2002 Fan helped found the Ruzhou Ru porcelain association and took part as one of the main drafters of the national standard for Ru porcelain, issued in

1. In 2003 Wang and Fan set up a Ru guan ware development company at Baofeng,

and in March 2006 the present Henan Hongbao Ru Porcelain Workshop Co., Ltd. was registered. The house works as a science-and-technology enterprise attached to the national intangible cultural heritage project of Ru porcelain firing, and it was recognized as a Henan Time-honored Brand in 2024.

What They Make

Ru porcelain: tea sets, tableware, and art vessels in the four glaze colours above. Official materials record five of the house's works entering the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' list of state gifts, and its dinnerware and tea sets being chosen in 2018 as state-banquet ware for the ministry's global presentation event for Henan. The working steps are set out on the Ru porcelain craft page.

Timeline

Passing It On

The line runs from Ma Yongjie to Wang Zhenfang (born 1969) and Fan Suizhou (born 1967), who trained under him. Wang was named a representative inheritor of the Ru porcelain firing technique at Henan's provincial level in 2013; Fan is a main drafter of the national standard for Ru porcelain and is recorded as a representative inheritor of the technique. Between them official materials record 25 apprentices trained and about 3,000 students guided free of charge each year.

Source: official materials published by Henan Hongbao Ru Porcelain Workshop Co., Ltd. Translated and condensed from the house's own record; no information has been added.

Historical facts on this page come from Official materials published by Henan Hongbao Ru Porcelain Workshop Co., Ltd. Designation recorded 2024-02-01. This page is editorial content; it is not a product listing and nothing here is an offer for sale.

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