Ceramics Saturdays: Longquan Ware

If you like celadon, then Song dynasty Longquan ware is for you. Production began in the Northern Song and lasted well into the Ming, making Longquan ware one of the most enduring and popular Song styles. Over 500 kilns were active in Zhejiang and northern Fujan provinces, with the largest “dragon” style ones capable of firing up to 25,000 pieces at a time. The clays were gray–rich red when fired–frequently impressed with molded desings. The celadon glazes, high in iron oxides, ranged from olive to bluish green–a rarer and preferred result that emerged from the elevated ends of the dragon kilns where the chambers heated and cooled more slowly and evenly. Despite the relative abundance of extant pieces, early Longquan wares can still coax very high prices from celadon collectors: the meiping (wine jar) pictured above went for over $200K at Sotheby’s in 2015.