Page 289 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

GLOSSARY OF PORCELAIN TERMS

anhua Dehua ware
Literally, "hidden" or "secret" decoration; designs Also known as blanc de chine; a dense white-
lightly incised into a porcelain body under a glaze. bodied porcelain made at kilns in the vicinity of
Dehua in Fujian Province from the seventeenth
applique century onward.
A decorative technique in which hand-sculpted or
molded clay decoration is attached to the surface of a diaper
ceramic vessel or object. A painted, stamped, incised, or molded decorative
motif, often used as a border and comprising repeated
atmosphere
The gaseous environment inside a kiln during the geometric or stylized designs.
firing cycle. doucai
Literally, "dove-tailed colors"; a style of porcelain
biscuit
The unglazed clay body of a ceramic vessel or object, decoration in which underglaze blue (cobalt oxide) is
generally used to refer to a fired but unglazed combined with delicate overglaze green, yellow, and
ceramic body. red enamels.
cavetto earthenware
The interior curving wall of a dish or bowl. A ceramic body made from common clays, usually
fired between 800 and 1,100 degrees Celsius.
celadon
A term widely but loosely used to describe Chinese enamel
green-glazed stonewares and porcelains with iron A glaze composed of lead and silica, usually colored
oxide glazes fired in a reduction (or reducing) with metallic oxides, that fuse at a low temperature
atmosphere. The term originated in France in the in a special kiln.
seventeenth century and referred specifically to a fahua
shepherd named Celadon who dressed in green, in A group of Ming-dynasty porcelains decorated with
the play L'Astree by Honore d'Urfe.
slip-trailed designs, and enameled on the biscuit;
chamfered made in both northern and southern China.
Cut or trimmed on a diagonal; characteristic of the famille rose
foot-rings of many Chinese ceramics from the Tang A group of Qing-dynasty porcelains decorated with
dynasty onward.
enamels utilizing colloidal gold as a key coloring
clay body agent, usually employing pink and rose red colors.
The clay structure of a ceramic vessel or object, as famille verte
opposed to the pigment, slip, or glaze applied to A group of early Qing-dynasty porcelains decorated
its surface.
in enamels in which shades of green predominate;
crackle famille jaune and famille noire are subcategories of
A network of cracks in a glaze, caused by different famille verte, with yellow and black as the dominant
ratios of shrinkage of the glaze and clay body. background colors.

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