Ding Kiln in Song Dynasty

The making of white porcelain had been a tradition in northern China since the Tang dynasty.By the Song dynasty，it was well continued and carried forward by Ding kiln.Among the five famous kilns，Ding kiln was the only one making white porcelain wares.

The site of Ding kiln is located at Quyang，Hebei province.It was under the jurisdiction of Dingzhou prefecture in ancient times.It evolved from the Xing kiln of the Tang dynasty.As the earliest kiln among the five famous kilns，it played a major role in porcelain making before the rise of the other four kilns.Therefore，the Chinese character 官（meaning court）is a common seal mark on Ding wares to indicate their royal identity.

White porcelain wares fired by Ding kiln present yellowish paste under warm ivory glaze. Decorations incised or molded on the paste vaguely reveal themselvesthrough the thin and transparent glaze, rendering natural and reserved beauty to the wares.

Ding wares have a wide variety. Most of them are daily utensils such as plates, bowls and cups, and they were facing an extensive market demand. In order to ease such intense supply-demand relation, the upside down firing method was applied to save space in kiln stoves, where rawporcelain wares were piled up and standing on their mouth rims. Though this method noticeably enhanced productivity, the mouth rim of each product was left unglazed, so that the molten glaze wouldn’t stick to the inside during the firing process. Such uneven and unglazed mouth rims were referred to as”mang”in Song documents. They were usually mounted with gold, silver or copper before presented as tributes to the royal family, and such decorations became a distinctive feature of Ding wares.

Beside the white porcelain as its main product, Ding kiln also fired wares in other colours, such as black and purple.

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