Connoisseurship and Discovery

Connoisseurship of porcelain can take the two main approaches: vessel shape and glaze. From the time a form appears to its transformation also involves changes in period style. Likewise, glaze color and decoration can reflect official or market taste.

True celadon was fired as early as the Eastern Han period, but beforehand, kiln ash naturally blanketed ceramics to create a celadon-like glaze, which became known as "gray-glazed pottery" or "proto-celadon." In the eighth and ninth centuries, celadon already was an important type of ceramic for appreciation. Lu Yu of the Tang dynasty, for example, in his Classic of Tea, refers to it as "like jade," and the poet Lu Guimeng of the same period compared it to "a thousand peaks of green color," both singing the praise of celadon through similes. In this exhibition of celadons from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, various differences in place and period of firing can be discerned, such as the sky-blue glaze of Ru wares, the ice-like crackle on Guan wares, the plum-green hues of Longquan wares, and the cracked pattern on Ge wares.

At the same time, shards collected from kiln sites have also uncovered some of the mysteries lying beneath the celadon surface. Regardless of glaze thickness and evenness, and whether there is decoration or not, these features are worth remembering in connoisseurship and important reference points. In this exhibition, special gratitude is due to the Chang Foundation and the Graduate Institute of Art History at National Taiwan University for providing celadon shards to display with the wares.