Message #39134

[Tom B.]

Dear Tom,

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my earlier post.  The difference in Qianlong period molded porcelain and late Qing copies is the added hand finishing of the carved details including the removal of the mold lines and sharpening of some details as necessary.  They could not do that with molded gourds because you would expose the inner pulp leaving it unprotected from ill effects of moisture, soil, etc. 

The following is an interesting link about the history of growing gourds inside of carved molds in China:

http://georgiagourdguy.com/Chinese_Mold.php

There is even one documented example from the Song Dynasty in a Japanese monastery and written records suggest that they were used as early as the Xia Dynasty in 2000 BC.