Breaking China Stone With Water-Powered Trip Hammers
1780
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1780
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Dominant colour
Breaking China Stone With Water-Powered Trip Hammers is a 1780 paint by Unknown, a Patna School of Painting work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This painting shows men using big wooden hammers powered by water to smash hard stone. The hammers drop fast, over and over, breaking the stone into small pieces. The men wear simple clothes. Their faces don’t show much. The artist made sure you see the power of the machine, not the workers. The stone will become fine porcelain later. Look up the Victoria and Albert Museum to see more paintings like this.
A rectangular watercolour from around 1780 in muted tones depicts three workers feeding china stone into a mechanised arrangement of water-powered trip hammers driven by a watermill on the right, one of a set of twenty-four scenes illustrating stages of the porcelain industry.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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