Painted jar of the Majiayao culture, Late Neolithic period (3300–2200 BC) Important specific types of pottery, many coming from more than one period, are dealt with individually in sections lower down. This was something of a compromise between the other types, and offered locations in the firing chamber with a range of firing conditions. In the late Ming, the egg-shaped kiln ( zhenyao) was developed at Jingdezhen, but mainly used there. Both could reliably produce the temperatures of up to 1,300 ☌ (2,370 ☏) or more needed for porcelain. These are the dragon kiln of hilly southern China, usually fuelled by wood, long and thin and running up a slope, and the horseshoe-shaped mantou kiln of the north Chinese plains, smaller and more compact. Two main types of kiln were developed by about 200 AD and remained in use until modern times. These were updraft kilns, often built below ground. The Chinese developed effective kilns capable of firing at around 1,000 ☌ (1,830 ☏) before 2000 BC. Kiln technology has always been a key factor in the development of Chinese pottery. Claims have been made for the late Eastern Han dynasty (100–200 AD), the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD), the Six Dynasties period (220–589 AD), and the Tang dynasty (618–906 AD). This in turn has led to confusion about when the first Chinese porcelain was made. In the context of Chinese ceramics, the term porcelain lacks a universally accepted definition (see above).

Porcelain stone – decomposed micaceous or feldspar rocks, historically also known as petunse.Ī black pottery cooking cauldron from the Hemudu culture (c.Kaolin – essential ingredient composed largely of the clay mineral kaolinite.Materials Ĭhinese porcelain is mainly made by a combination of the following materials: The northern materials are often very suitable for stoneware, while in the south there are also areas highly suitable for porcelain. Southern materials have high silica, low alumina and high potassium oxide, the reverse of northern materials in each case. The kiln types were also different, and in the north the fuel was usually coal, as opposed to wood in the south, which often affects the wares. Ware-types can be from very widespread kiln-sites in either north or south China, but the two can nearly always be distinguished, and influences across this divide may affect shape and decoration, but will be based on very different clay bodies, with fundamental effects. The contrasting geology of the north and south led to differences in the raw materials available for making ceramics in particular the north lacks petunse or 'porcelain stone', needed for porcelain on the strict definition. China comprises two separate and geologically different land masses, brought together by continental drift and forming a junction that lies between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, sometimes known as the Nanshan- Qinling divide. Ĭhinese pottery can also be classified as being either northern or southern. The Erya defined porcelain ( cí) as 'fine, compact pottery ( táo)'. Terms such as ' porcellaneous' or 'near-porcelain' may be used for stonewares with porcelain-like characteristics. The Chinese tradition recognizes two primary categories of ceramics: high-fired ( cí 瓷) and low-fired ( táo 陶), so doing without stoneware, which in Chinese tradition is mostly grouped with (and translated as) porcelain.

Porcelain, on a Western definition, is 'a collective term comprising all ceramic ware that is white and translucent, no matter what ingredients are used to make it or to what use it is put'. Stoneware, fired at higher temperatures, and naturally impervious to water, was developed very early and continued to be used for fine pottery in many areas at most periods the tea bowls in Jian ware and Jizhou ware made during the Song dynasty are examples. The earliest Chinese pottery was earthenware, which continued in production for utilitarian uses throughout Chinese history, but was increasingly less used for fine wares. A qingbai porcelain vase, bowl, and model of a granary with transparent blue-toned glaze, from the period of the Song dynasty (960–1279 AD)

Chinese ceramic blue horse bookends