Ceramics Saturdays: Yaozhou Ware

With the Yaozhou kiln, we complete our series on Song Dynasty ceramics. The kiln at Yaozhou, in Shaanxi province, was active since the Tang Dynasty and transitioned to making celadon wares sometime in the early Northern Song period (960-1127 AD). While never as luminescent as their southern Longquan cousins, Yaozhou celadons were collected by the imperial court and traded along the Silk Road as far away as Spain. The color of the glaze tends more to an olive green than the Longquan blue-green. The best Yaozhou wares are carved, not molded, as these are earlier and the designs are finer, but the differences can be hard to discern. They vary in value depending on shape, design, and glaze quality. The ewer pictured above sold for a bit over $240K at Christie’s in 2015.