Ding ware

Ding ware, Ting ware (Chinese: 定瓷; pinyin: Dìngcí) or Dingyao are Chinese ceramics, mostly porcelain, that were produced in the prefecture of Dingzhou (formerly romanized as "Ting-chou") in Hebei in northern China. The main kilns were at Jiancicun or Jianci in Quyang County. They were produced between the Tang and Yuan dynasties of imperial China, though their finest period was in the 11th century, under the Northern Song.^[1] The kilns "were in almost constant operation from the early eighth until the mid-fourteenth century."^[2]

The most characteristic wares are thin porcelains with a white or greyish body and a nearly transparent white-tinted glaze,^[3] though they are classed as stoneware by some.^[4] Chemical analysis has shown that they were often made entirely of a kaolinitic clay without any petuntse or "porcelain stone".^[5] They are mostly decorated with uncoloured designs that are incised or in very shallow relief.

Ding ware was the most famous northern Chinese white ware under the Song, although there was increasing competition from the Qingbai ware from Jingdezhen in the south, which by the end of the Song had eclipsed Ding ware, achieving a predominance it has maintained in subsequent centuries. A key event in this process was the flight of the remaining Northern Song court to the south, after they lost control of the north in the disastrous Jin-Song wars of the 1120s. A new Southern Song court was based in Hangzhou.^[6] This may have been accompanied by the movement of potters to Jingdezhen.^[7]