The Teawares Produced by the Seven Famous Kilns in Tang Dynasty

The Teawares Produced by the Seven Famous Kilns in Tang Dynasty

Yueh kilns ware

Yueh kiln is famous ware kiln in Tang Dynasty. Shangyu,Zhangzi hill, Ling lake, Shanglin in Cixi in Zhejiang province and the Baiyang lake nearby can be the typical kilns. We had some rescrched in Shaoxing, Zhuji, Yinxian, Fenghua, Linhai, Huangyan ect. Yueh kiln still kept the style of Southern Dynasties and Sui Dynasty in the early of Tang Dynasty. Lu Yu considered the Yueh kiln wares as NO.1 in The Classic of Tea.

(14) Celadon bowl, height 4.5cm, caliberl5.lcm, bottom diameter 6cm, collected by Zhejiang Museum.

Wide-mouth, straight belly. A big jade wall with round feet, scraped the glaze at the bottom of feet, but glaze at the center of feet. It is order shape. Fulling of thick celadon glaze totally and well-proportioned, ice crackled decoration in part.

(15) Celadon bowl, height 4.8cm, caliberl3.7cm, bottom diameter 6.8cm, collected by Gugong Museum.

Wide-mouth, lip-rounding, round belly, the bottom feet looked like the jade wall. Fulling of thick celadon glaze totally and clean, smoothly, line crackled decoration in part.

(16) Celadon glazed sunflower bowl, height 4.8cm, caliberl3.7cm, bottom diameter 6.8cm, collected by Gugong Museum.

Wide-mouth, sunflower shape, converged down to the bottom, It is little broad feet and five lines below the sunflower rim, Fulling of thick celadon glaze totally and naturally, kind of jadelike stone embellish and bright.

Yueh kiln's Celadon glazed teawares were began to occupy an ever-increasing role in daily life, and bowl is the most production as we know about funeral vessels and so on. The shape of bowl became diversification after Mid-Tang period. Late-Tang period, seggar was used in Yueh kiln, The quality of products improved mostly thanks to this protection.

Yuezhou Kilns

Yuezhou Kilns is the famous kiln in Tang Dynasty at Xiangyin in Hunan province, Xiangyin belonged to Yuezhou in old, so we call it "Yuezhou Kiln' Lu Yu put the kind of vessels above the Shouzhou kiln and Hongzhou kiln.

(17) Green glazed bowl, height 8.1cm,caliberl6.4cm, bottom diameter8.3cm, collected by Gugong Museum.

Little wide-mouth, lip-rounding, round low belly, round feet. Five straight lines were pressed by instruments on the belly of bowl. Fulling of thick celadon glaze both inside and outside, thin uneven green-glaze is rude, the ice crackled decoration on the glaze,a little botchy than Yueh kiln.

Xingzhou Kiln

Xingzhou Kiln is the famous kiln in Tang Dynasty at Neiqiu, Song village on east of Taihang mountain, near from the Qicun and Shuangjing village according to the geological explorational reserch. Neiqiu and Qicun nearby were the most representative exquisite-whiteware ceramics area, this area belonged to Xingzhou in old, so we called it as "Xingzhou Kiln".

The whiteware ceramics of Xingzhou kiln got the fame of general currency no matter you poor or rich. Jiao Ran who ,lived in Tang Dynasty described the Whiteware ceramics of Xingzhou kiln Fas: white teaware is so clean as snow, the foam is floating and smell such good as nectar. He thought it would be good if white teaware fulled of green tea, The ceramics produced by Xing kiln as well know as "Nciqiu ceramics". At the late of 9 century, the whiteware of Xing kiln and the celadon of Yuch kiln were formed the tripartite confrontation market in China ceramic history.

(18) White glazed bowl, height 4.7cm, caliber 15.6cm, bottom diameter6.7cm, collected by Gugong Museum.

Wide-mouth, valgus lip, low belly, thin bottom feet with jade wall style. Fulling of celadon glaze both side, no glazed feet, This was common style which changed thick wall to thin one, the changing fashion of tea-drinking should be the mo?t important factor.

Shouzhou Kiln

Shouzhou Kiln is the famous kiln in Tang Dynasty at Huainan city and nearby town such as Fengyang and Fengtai in Anhui province. So many kilns were found centralized in Yujiagou kiln, Guanjiazui was the earlist kiln at here. Tang is the booming period for Shouzhou kiln, the history of fired continued for more than 200 years. Lu Yu commented on the tea-drinking way as: yellow Shouzhou kiln, purple tea-drinking." He listed the Shouzhou kiln behind the Yueh kiln, Ding kiln, Wu kiln, Yue kiln. The shape such as cups, bowls, alms bowls, bowls were most There were thick and thin paste, white and white-red, white-yellow color. Shouzhou kiln is famous for its yellow glazed ceramics. They used saggar in early-Tang, but the tiny exquisite paste ceramics were rare because the low fire temperature.

(19) Yellow glazed bowl, height 4.9cm, haliber 16.3cm,bottom diameter7.8cm, collected by Anhui Museum.

Wide-mouth, lip-rounding, curved wall, round feet. Fulling of pure yellow glaze both side, glazed outside to above the bottom,beige paste. What Lu Yu commented on the tea-drinking way as: yellow Shouzhou kiln, purple tea-drinking were just these kind of type.

Hongzhou kiln

Hongzhou kiln if the famous kiln in Tang Dynasty at Fengcheng in Jiangxi province, Fengcheng belonged to Hongzhou, so we called it as "Hongzhou kiln". It was one of the most important seven kilns in Tang Dynasty, and less records in historic documents except the Classic of Tea which was written thousands years ago. According to the study of related documents and diggings untombed by Jiangxi Cultural Relics Archeology Association and Archeology Department of Beijing University, we know that the Hongzhou kiln could producted the full-blown ceramics in the late of Eastern Han Dynasty, with the development of Three Kingdom, East-Wu, Western Jin, it went into a prosparous period in Eastern Jin, Northern Dynasty, and it continued to the mid-Tang, decayed at the late-Tang Dynasty, lasted for 800 years. Green glazed porcelain and brown glazed porcelain were their major products, the major shape contained bowl, cups, vhaes, Mforlamp, jar, ,alms bowls and official utensils, etc. There were many decorations such as hollow-out, scratched flowers,printing and sculptured. The usual pattern they used such as lotus, rose, designs of composite flowers, plum blossoms and conjunctions, etc. Lu Yu thought the teapot of Hongzhou kiln was so black to infusion of tea with its brown ceramics.

(20) Yellow-green wide-mouth bowl, Caliberl4.3cm, collected by Fengcheng Museum.

Wide-mouth, lip-round, low belly,round feet, yellow-green glazed half inside.

(21) Celadon round line big-mouth cup, caliberl0.9cm, collected by Fengcheng Museum.

Wide-mouth, lip-round, straight abdominal wall,low belly, two lines out of the lip-rim, routs line decoration pressed on the belly, round feet, green glazed half of both side.

(22) Yellow-green wide-mouth bowl, caliber14.3cm, collected by Fengcheng Museum.

Converged-mouth, lip-round, curved wall, round feet and cancave inside,low belly,yellow-green glared half of both side.

The most life products was the bowl of Hongzhou kiln, at the late-Tang period, the side piece improved thick and heavy to thin and light Some cups got the effection of produced by metal vessels in the mid-Tang period, so a little special.

(23) Round body cup, Caliber8.5cm, collected by Fengcheng Museum.

Converged-mouth, lip-round, curved wall, cambered deep belly, round feet, the handle was broken. Fulled of yellow-green glazed inside, outside just ending to belly bottom, the paste of feet were charcoal grey.

(24) Round body cup, Caliber7.2cm, collated by Fengcheng Museum.

Converged-mouth, curled lip-rim, curl wall, deep belly, little round feet, Fulled of yellow-green glazed both side.

(25) Broken ear-cup, caliber6.9cm, collected by Fengcheng Museum.

Wide-mouth, the body of cup were loudspeaker shape, beam waist, a dozen of bow string pattern in the middle of the belly, three convex water mark on the bottom,brown glazed both side.

This was a rare shape, similar to the flower golden ear cups excavated in Hejiacun in Xi'an of Shanxi province and silver round handles cup excavated in Shapocun in Xi'an of Shanxi province, no idea about the relationship.

(26) Flower golden ear cups,excavated in Hejiacun in Xi'an of Shanxi province.

Made by the later of 7century approximately, a kind of Sute style vessels-Su Te is a fantastical nation with isolating culture and economy, developed handcraft and business which lived near Amu Darya and Xier River basin in the Central Asia. Their business and migration were found everywherein Eurasia. Their east moving promoted the communications with Chinese culture, some of them lived and agglomeration in Tang areas, to make their own culture could be continued and make the other knew about these. Their gold and silver ware manufactured handcraft was developed and influenced the gold and silver ware manufactured handcraft of Tang Dynasty.

(27) Handle silver cup, height 6.3cm, Caliber7cm, excavated at Shapocun village in Xi'an.

This cup had been influenced by the style of Suter's gold and silver ware manufactured handcraft obviously, maybe it was for tea-drinking, there should be a cup stand under the cup depend on the shape of cup bottom.

Tea-drinking became common at the beginning of late-Tang according to the data.

Dingzhou kiln

Dingzhou kiln is the famous kiln in Tang Dynasty. The Classic of Tea described the ceramic quality of this style was better than Shouzhou and Hongzhou kilns.

The ceramic porcelain of Dingzhou kiln belonged to celadon, but had not discovered the excact manufacturing location.

Wuzhou Kiln

Wuzhou Kiln is one of the famous green porcelain kiln in Tang Dynasty, Jinhua in Zhejiang province is the ancient location as we know right now. The Classic of Tea discribed this kiln as the NO.3. It fired the green porcelain mainly,also fired some black porcelain.lt produced common vessels such as bowls, plates, pots, bottles and ewers,etc. After the mid-Tang period, this kind of kiln used the local red clay as the raw material, put ttie white engobe for covering the purple paste, then celadon outside. It decomposed after the mid-Tang period.