Jade Green and Kingfisher Blue

Longquan wares were made mainly in Zhejiang province over a period of over sixteen hundred years, from the 3rd to the 19th centuries. There are two outstanding features of the beautiful Longquan ceramics, one is that the body is made of porcelain, and the other, that the glaze contains kaolin in its composition. This gives Longquan ware unique colour and quality. The body is smooth and dense, the glaze either unctuous or shiny, the colour a myriad shades of kingfisher blue and jade green. The result of development of porcelain technology at Longquan was a tough, attractive, and versatile celadon material that was ideally suited for export. Longquan vessels found their way to a variety of markets around the world, from royal palaces to common dwellings. During the Yuan dynasty a peak in quantity was reached, with more than 150 kiln sites overall. Many new decoration techniques and forms of mass production for global exports emerged, until production almost expired entirely during the