1.What is Chun Ware?
Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries A.D.,a series of kilns located in the North
China YU-hsien (Yu County) region of Honan Province, produced a distinctive ceramic ware
with a multicolored array of glazes. During the Sung dynasty (960-1279), present day YU
County was known as Chun prefecture. Accordingly, the region's kilns were known as the
Chun kilns,and the ceramics they manufactured,as Chun ware. Chun glaze is charscterized
by substantial variation,with a wide full range of celadon,blue,purple,and red glazes used
to decorated everything from decorative objects like flower pots and stands to items of daily
used such as bowls and plates. In some cases, the inside and outside of a given piece were
even decorated with different colors. At other times,purple or red mottles were applied
over a monochrome bluish-green or sky blue glaze. Many of these glaze effects were
"transforming" quality of Chun glaze.
2.The Chun Kilns
With the discovery of the so-called Chun-t'ai kiln site in Yu-hsien, most people now refer
to Chun-t'ai as the historic center of Chun ware production. In fact, evidence of Chun
production can be found scattered throughout the present day province of Honan, at sites
that include An-yang, Ho-pi, Chun-hsien, Chiao-tso, Lu-shan, Pao-feng, Yu-hsien, Chia-hsien
Lin-ju, Nei-hsiang,Hsin-an and Teng-feng. Chun ware has been found at locations as distant
as Hobei, Shansi, Inner Mongolia, and even Russia. It is only by looking at the full range of
Chun discoveries that we begin to realize the massive scale of Chun ware production.