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Qingbai ware (Chinese: 青白; pinyin: qīngbái; lit. 'green-white') is a type of Chinese porcelain produced under the Song dynasty and Yuan dynasty, defined by the ceramic glaze used.[1] Qingbai ware is white with a blue-greenish tint, and is also referred to as Yingqing ("shadow green", although this name appears only to date from the 18th century).[2] It was made in Jiangxi province in south-eastern China, in several locations including Jingdezhen, and is arguably the first type of porcelain to be produced on a very large scale. However, it was not at the time a prestigious ware, and was mostly used for burial wares and exports, or a middle-rank Chinese market.[3] The quality is very variable, reflecting these different markets;[2] the best pieces can be very thin-walled.[4]
Qingbai ware was made with a white porcelain body, fired with a glaze that produced a slight blue-green tint. The kilns used pine wood as fuel, producing a reducing atmosphere that produced the tint. Qingbai ware was used by commoners, and never seems to have been made for imperial use; its quality only came to be appreciated by collectors several centuries later.[3] In the 14th century the same manufacturers turned to the new blue and white porcelain, using the same body, which saw the end of Qingbai ware.[5]
Many types of items were made: as well as the usual plates and bowls, there were teapots and small round lidded boxes, usually described as for cosmetics. Items made for burial included tall funerary urns with complicated, and rather crowded, sets of figures. There are also tomb figures, though less care is expended on these than on the famous sancai figures of the Tang dynasty.[6] Small Buddha statues, often with highly detailed hair, clothes and accessories, come from late in the period.[7]
A variety of forming techniques were used, tending for basic shapes to move over the period from wheel-thrown vessels decorated by carving with a knife (incised) or impressed decoration, to moulded bodies. Shapes and decoration had much in common with Ding ware from northern China;[8] indeed the Jingdezhen white wares preceding Qingbai are known as "Southern Ding".[9]