Tradition · pottery craft · India
Jaipur Blue Pottery
Also known as Jaipur, Jaipur blue pottery
The Jaipur Blue Pottery tradition at Jaipur in Rajasthan — the 300-year-old Persian-derived glazed pottery tradition using quartz (not clay) as the primary material, producing distinctive turquoise, cobalt blue and white glazed ceramics with floral and bird motifs. The tradition was brought to Jaipur in the 1720s by the Persian potter Mohammed Hussain under Maharaja Jai Singh II's patronage; Jai Singh had seen similar pottery at the Mughal court. The quartz-based paste (which is fired at 800°C and glazed with cobalt-copper-manganese pigments) does not use any clay — making Jaipur Blue Pottery technically a non-clay ceramic. The tradition declined in the 19-century but was revived in the 1960s by Kripal Singh Shekhawat, who received the 1974 Padma Shri for his restoration work. GI tag 2016 for Jaipur Blue Pottery. The modern tradition has about 500 artisan families at Jaipur. The 2015 Jaipur Blue Pottery exhibitions at the Jaipur Literature Festival have revived international interest.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 26.920, 75.780
Connections (3)
- Craft tradition ofJaipur walled city
Jaipur blue pottery is not clay at all: it is quartz powder, powdered glass, fuller's earth and gum, fired low, and it came to Jaipur from Persia by way of the Mughal court and Delhi. Sawai Ram Singh II brought potters to the city in the nineteenth century and set up a school. The craft was nearly extinct by the 1950s and was revived by Kripal Singh Shekhawat under the patronage of the Jaipur royal family and Rajmata Gayatri Devi.
- AnalogueKāshī kāri
Two living blue-glaze traditions a thousand kilometres apart, descended from the same Persian root by different routes, and they have never met. Kāshī kāri reached Multan and Sindh directly with Central Asian craftsmen and stayed on the shrines, heavy on cobalt and turquoise against white. Jaipur blue pottery came through Mughal Delhi and, by the usual account, an Afghan potter's migration into Rajasthan, and became a studio craft of vessels rather than an architectural surface. Same chemistry, same palette, two entirely separate professions.
- Site withinJaipur
Jaipur Blue Pottery lies within Jaipur — the two sites sit about 1 km apart, well inside the city's historical boundary and part of the same urban or peri-urban landscape. Jaipur Blue Pottery is one of the specific sites that give Jaipur its layered character, and reads differently when seen as a stop within the larger city rather than as an isolated monument on an open map. The surrounding neighbourhoods, roads and other heritage ensembles belong to the same single urban fabric.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Jaipur”. Geographical Indications Registry (Government of India) filings; Ministry of Textiles and Sangeet Natak Akademi craft documentation.
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