Earthly delights

Researchers and collectors of antique pottery are still talking about an exhibit that took place last year titled “From Go Sanh to Quang Duc”. Long Tuyen investigates. In the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum a map shows two ancient pottery centers, Go Sanh in Binh Dinh and Quang Duc in Phu Yen. The first thrived in the old Kingdom of Champa, the other on the border of Phu Yen province in Quang Nam prefecture of Dai Viet under the reign of King Le Thanh Tong.

Found by Vietnamese researchers before 1975, Go Sanh pottery was produced in the wealthy Vijaya Dynasty of the Cham Kingdom. Quang Duc pottery evolved out of techniques and enamel technology learned from China and from the ancient Chams.

The clay for Quang Duc pottery was sourced at An Dinh and the enamel was made from blood cockles from O Loan Lagoon. The fires were fed with hop seed bushes and queens crape myrtle wood, plants peculiar to the An Dinh area. Researchers have found that all Quang Duc pottery has shell marks and distinctively colored enamel. Using shells to test firing temperatures was a technique used by ancient potters in many places, but exposing blood cockles to high heat to create colored enamel is a practice unique to Quang Duc wares.

A shipwreck found near Binh Thuan contained Jingdezhen and Dehua porcelains from the 16th and 17th centuries, plus Go Sanh - Binh Dinh and Quang Duc - Phu Yen pottery. This shows that Quang Duc pottery was exported as well as being valued locally.

In its heyday, Quang Duc pottery was sold in many places in Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City antique collector Tran Dinh Son had some items of Quang Duc shell pottery, including a lime pot with a poem in nom script, that were found when a canal in Saigon was dredged after 1975.

The Quang Duc pottery trade dates back 300 years
Artisans report that the Quang Duc pottery trade dates back 300 years and was established by the Nguyen family from Binh Dinh. There are grounds to suppose that Quang Duc pottery is the successor of the Chams' famous Go Sanh - Binh Dinh pottery of the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th centuries and later Dai Viet pottery.

When the Nguyen family moved to Ngan Son they found excellent clay, fuel and waterways on which to transport their pottery. Their wares were very distinctive. Unbaked pottery was placed into a firing bag and blood cockles were stuffed inside before firing. According to antique collector Nguyen Vinh Bao from Binh Dinh, Go Sanh and Quang Duc pottery was fired using hop seed bushes to increase the kiln temperature and create the distinctively colored enamel.

Quang Duc village is now in An Thach commune, Tuy An district, Phu Yen province. Many trade villages remain in this area. In Quang Duc village, Quang Diem Luu Phuoc Temple still contains parallel sentences that read:
“Merits from the ancestors are permanent.
Luck for the descendants lasts for numerous generations.”