Porcelain of the Yuan Dynasty

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The Yuan dynasty was founded by the Mongolians. Its porcelain industry of itself, however, due to its nomadicorigin, was less notable, and was overshadowed by the two peaks-the Song dynasty and the Ming and Qing period.

Actually, the wares of the Yuan era inherited the Song style, as many Song kilns still kept firing then. Nonetheless, the Yuan porcelain products were much larger than those of Song, which probably resulted from the influence of the bold and uninhibited characters of the Mongolians. And generally speaking, most of these kilns suffered a lot over the long-drawn-out war, and went on decline in the Yuan era.

Besides the inheritance of earlier styles, the porcelain industry in Central Plains embraced a renovation brought by the Mongolian conquest. Because the Mongolian had a preference for blue and white, the white shufu wares andthe blue-and-white qinghua wares flourished during this period.

The Noble and Elegant Shufu Ware

Shufu ware, best known as egg-white ware, was a kind of high-grade porcelain in the Yuan dynasty. Egg white refers to its pure glaze, while shufu(meaning Privy Council) indicates its noble status. However, to be exact, shufu wares only refer to the egg-white wares that were exclusively supplied to the Privy Council. In other cases, there is no necessary link between egg-white and shufu.

White colour was considered pure and clean，and favored by people of Yuan dynasty.As a result，white porcelain was also preferred.High quality bluish white wares had been already produced in Jingdezhen during the Song era.With the advancement of porcelain firing

techniques，porcelain with purer glaze was manufactured during the Yuan era，which resembles that of the duck egg，thus was named“egg-white”.Its colour was deeply loved by the Yuan court，and Jingdezhen was often ordered to fire porcelain specially for the government.Among those egg-white wares，some are inscribed with a seal mark of（shufu）at the bottom，therefore they are named shufu wares.

As the counterpart of Shumiyuan（or Palace Secretariat）in the Song dynasty，Shufu acted as the nerve centre of the Yuan government，and took charge of the most important affairs of the country，such as military affairs，diplomacy，and court guards.Through the importance of Shufu，it is not difficult to imagine the status enjoyed by shufu wares in the Yuan era, which is incomparable with any other types of porcelain.