The Jizhou Kiln was established in the Tang Dynasty. The location was in the Yonghe Town, Jizhou (today's Ji'an) City, Jiangxi Province.

The Jizhou kiln had its special reputation for the black glaze porcelains. The roughcast was thick and heavy, the glaze was as dark as black lacquer, or sometimes looked like soy sauce. The workers had many interesting ideas about the decoration patterns on the glaze so the Jizhou porcelain was very distinguishable in the Song Dynasty.

The skilled workers in the Jizhou kiln used the Chinese paper cut as the decoration of the porcelain. They transplanted the paper cut to the porcelain surface. Many auspicious traditional Chinese patterns had been used. They also invented the leaf-pattern porcelain: The craftsmen first put a layer of black glaze on the roughcast, then used a piece of special treated leaf, sticking it on the roughcast; the leaf was also coated with a thin layer of glaze. After it was heated there was leaf pattern on the bowl.

A traditional Chinese paper cut, click on image to enlarge

Some of the Jizhou kiln porcelains also had the furnace-transmutation: the single colored glaze changed its color during the heating procedure. The most well-known patterns created by the furnace-transmutation were turtle-shell and francolin feather patterns.

The glaze layer of the Jizhou Porcelains are uneven, usually the roughcast is exposed on the bottom rims, where some irregular knife-cut marks can be visualized. Meanwhile, on some other fake Jizhou porcelains, the exposed roughcast on the lower rim is very smooth, not like the simple and plain style. This is an important method to distinguish the genuine Jizhou porcelain.

 

Background Knowledge: History of China

 >>back