Eastern moon

Country: Spain

Manufactory: Lladro

Date of establishment: 2008

Sculptor: Joan Coderch

Size (cm): 34*32

Porcelain Story

I really like this porcelain composition. There are so many things in it that were previously seen and remembered for a long time on trips to China and Japan. And clearly marked elements of female decoration on the main character of the work, and the use of various techniques in creating the effect of three-dimensional space, and the thinnest flower petals decorating the tree...

All this cannot but attract the attention of the viewer, causing interest in the smallest details of the work. But the most interesting is not even that. And in ... the moon itself! Unfortunately, I will not be able to show you this incredible effect, but I will try to describe it.

So. If you put a small lamp in the background of this work and turn it on, you will notice the yellowish glow of the lunar disk, as if hovering in the 3D space of this unusual composition. This effect is achieved by adding components to the porcelain mass before firing, which cause an amazing internal glow of the lunar disk when it is illuminated by any light source.

This effect was invented centuries ago by Japanese and Korean porcelain makers. And I once already talked about how the masters of the Japanese manufactory Satsuma resorted to this trick. They managed to “bake” portraits of geishas into the thin bottom of tea cups made of porcelain. In natural light, these portraits are not visible. But as soon as you illuminate the bottom of the cup with something, the finest details of the portrait of a beautiful Japanese woman clearly appear on it.

In the work presented to your attention, the Spanish masters managed to use the effect of their Japanese colleagues in their own way. Moreover, this was done in a work created according to oriental motives. Well, and besides, lately so much has been told and shown on television about a rather rare coincidence in one day of lunar events - and a supermoon, and a "blood moon", and a "blue moon" - that I somehow wanted to complete this entire “lunar” epic with a short porcelain story. Moreover, according to the forecasts of astrologers, the next similar phenomenon should be expected no earlier than 2034.