Jingdezhen is a city in the Jiangxi Province. This city has been producing porcelains since the Song Dynasty. Today it is called "the Capital of Porcelain".

One of Jingdezhen porcelain masters' great invention is the Yingqing porcelain, also called the Qingbai (Green and White) porcelain. The color of the glaze is either green or white, very clear and pure, as smooth as a piece of jade, therefore the Yingqing porcelain was also called artificial jade in the history.

In the Song Dynasty, there were many Yingqing producers in Jingdezhen such as the Hutian Kiln, Xianghu Kiln, Shengmeiting Kiln and Liu Jiawan Kiln. They made fine porcelain bowls, plates, bottles, jars and porcelain pillows. There were many decoration methods of the Yingqing porcelains.

The Yingqing porcelain was very popular in the Song Dynasty. It was exported to many countries.

Before the Yingqing porcelain, all other porcelains only used translucent glaze on the opaque roughcasts. The Yingqing porcelain was the first translucent roughcast porcelain. Therefore the whole piece of vessel became translucent. This is a big leap of Chinese porcelain history.

 

Background Knowledge: History of China

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