Light Greenish Glaze Porcelain Furnace of Ge Kiln
3 min readLight Greenish Glaze Porcelain Furnace of Ge Kiln is a furnace for the purpose of incense burning. It is basically oblate, with straight and slightly open mouth and round and outward rolling mouth rim, which forms a circle of soft ribs. The upper part of furnace abdomen sees two fifi sh-shaped ears. Porcelain furnace is covered with vein pieces at different sizes. Large veins are in black, while small veins are in brown. This artwork features light greenish glaze color and moist glaze quality. This furnace boasts elegant and refifi ned overall modeling and solemn and solid style, which is harmonious with solemn memorial atmosphere of the grand hall. It is the outstanding representative masterpiece of Ge Kiln technology in the Song Dynasty.
According to the legend, in the Song Dynasty, there was a man named Zhang Cungen in Longquan County, Zhejiang. He was good at fifi ring celadon ware. After he died, his two sons respectively ran workshops (the elder brother ran Ge Kiln Workshop, and the younger brother ran Di Kiln Workshop). But the elder brother enjoys better craftsmanship, and his “purple mouth and iron foot” gained countrywide reputation. Even the emperor made imperial order to Ge Kiln Workshop to fifi re celadon ware. The younger brother was jealous and got chance to sneak to throw clay into glaze cylinder in Ge Kiln Workshop. The elder brother applied glaze mixed with the clay on blank. After fifi ring, he was shocked to see that glaze surface cracked on porcelains in the whole kiln, and cracks greatly differed with various shapes. Some cracks looked like small fifi sh, some cracks looked like willow leaf, and some cracks looked like crab. The elder brother wanted to cry but no tears. So he thought of a solution. He applied thick tea on porcelain. When cracks turned into tan lines, he painted with ink. Cracks immediately became black lines. In this way, “gold thread and iron string” of Ge Kiln was inadvertently born.
Ge Kiln
Ge Kiln was one of the fifi ve famous kilns of the Song Dynasty. Fired objects include thorough-ear vase, fish-ear furnace, fivefoot washer, a variety of plates and bowls and so on. These objects feature excellent production, concise simplicity and few depicted patterns on the body, which excel in terms of shape and glaze color. The body falls into porcelain body and sand body. Pottery body is refined, and glaze colors mainly include dark gray, light gray and black colors. Glaze quality is solid because thin glaze is applied on mouth rim and body color is exposed. Bottom of ring foot is exposed so “purple mouth and iron foot” is famous. Ge Kiln porcelain is particularly famous for decorative pattern which is commonly known as “gold thread and iron string” or “eel blood line”.
Gold thread and iron string
“Gold thread and iron string” is glaze decorative feature of Ge Kiln porcelain, i.e., adopts cracks on glaze surface and lines like ice cleft. This is mainly due to different expansion degree of glaze body. When Ge Kiln porcelain was fifi red, the plant ash was often applied on its surface so that the plant ash was immersed within the cracks and veins showed black. Later small cracks continued to show on black veins, and they later showed yellowish brown. Such lines are yellow and black, therefore “gold thread and iron string” are called.
