Jizhou ware

Jizhou ware or Chi-chou ware (Chinese: 吉州窯; pinyin: Jízhōu yáo; Wade–Giles: Chi-chou yao) is Chinese pottery from Jiangxi province in southern China; the Jizhou kilns made a number of different types of wares over the five centuries of production. The best known wares are simple shapes in stoneware, with a strong emphasis on subtle effects in the dark glazes, comparable to Jian ware, but often combined with other decorative effects. In the Song dynasty they achieved a high prestige, especially among Buddhist monks and in relation to tea-drinking. The wares often use leaves or paper cutouts to create resist patterns in the glaze, by leaving parts of the body untouched.

In the Yuan dynasty Jizhou also produced Qingbai ware, as well as brown and white slip-painted wares that borrowed their technique from Cizhou ware, popular wares produced at many sites in north China, and may have been significant in influencing the start of blue and white pottery in Jingdezhen ware, from relatively nearby.^[1]

Production seems to have begun in the late Tang dynasty or under the Five Dynasties, and continued until the Yuan dynasty.^[2] Production seems to have ended suddenly in the 14th century, for reasons that are not yet clear.^[3] In a ranking of Chinese wares from 1388, in the Essential Criteria of Antiquities, Jizhou ware is listed in ninth place, above Longquan celadon, which was falling from fashion by then.^[4]