Sauce glaze, also known as: "persimmon glaze, purple gold glaze", is a kind of high-temperature color glaze with iron as the coloring agent, and the total amount of iron oxide and ferrous oxide in the glaze is high, reaching more than 5%. The Song Dynasty was the golden age of the development of sauce-glazed porcelain, and porcelain kilns were widely fired in the north and south, and the Yaozhou kiln, Ding kiln and DangyangYu kiln in the north were outstanding representatives. The Qing Dynasty was the peak of the development of sauce-glazed porcelain, and became one of the antique glaze varieties specially produced by the Jingdezhen Royal Kiln Factory due to the favor of the emperor.
As one of the five famous kilns of the Song Dynasty, Dingyao was once fired for the official government to use court porcelain, and was known for its beautiful shape and exquisite artistic charm, which was admired by future generations. Jingdezhen imitation sauce glazed porcelain began in the early Ming Dynasty.
In the spring of 1964, the Nanjing Museum found a large number of Ming Dynasty porcelain pieces in the Ruins of the Yudai River in the Ming Palace. Among them, the sauce-colored glaze bowl and the blue-glazed dark flower Yunlong bowl in the outer sauce glaze reveal the mystery of firing such products in the early Ming Dynasty; The blue glazed high-foot bowl in the outer sauce glaze collected by the Artecan Art Museum in Kansas City, the British Museum, from the process to the ornamentation, is almost exactly the same as the Yunlong bowl collected by the Nanjing Museum, thus confirming the objective existence of the Hongwuguan kiln.
At the same time, the production of sauce glazed porcelain in the folk kiln is not inferior, excavated in Fengtai District, Beijing, and now collected in the Beijing Capital Museum of two sauce glazed pear-shaped pots, with a height of 12.5cm and a caliber of 4cm, the pot body is pear-shaped, the neck of the pot is short, and the bending is hard and unnatural; The abdomen is plump, the bottom foot is flat cut, the bottom edge is vertical, the foot is deeper, and the rotation is neat; The tire quality is delicate and white, the surface of the vessel has blank marks, the glaze is thin, and the glaze color is sauce brown. The shape of this pot is novel and unique, stable and elegant. However, compared with the official kiln ware of the same period, the disadvantages are: the shape is not regular enough, the tone of the lid and body of the pot on the same utensils cannot be unified, the glaze is uneven, the glaze has a glaze reduction point, and the production process is rough.
What is sauce glaze
Sauce glaze, or sauce color glaze, is a kind of high-temperature glaze with iron as the colorant, the glaze color is such as persimmon yellow or sesame sauce color, hence the name.
Mentioning the sauce glaze often gives people a vague feeling, which is commonly known as "Ziding". But it is certain that the ancients were able to visually discern these colors. Some people also call sauce glaze "glaze", "he glaze", "ochre glaze", "brown glaze", etc., and these colors are also clearly recorded in ancient texts. As for the use of "sauce color" to describe the glaze color of porcelain, its conceptual meaning itself is also very broad, making it difficult to define the exact color position. The use of sauce-based pronouns as color nouns seems to have appeared later. After the Qing Dynasty, sauce color has been a proper noun for colors juxtaposed with purple, red, blue, green, black, etc.
Because the sauce itself will show a series of color conversions such as milky yellow, yellow, yellow red, reddish yellow, brownish red, brownish black at the beginning, middle and late stages of fermentation, experts pointed out that as long as the high-temperature glaze with iron as the colorant, the color is brownish yellow, even if some are partial ochre, purple, reddish or brown, can be called soy sauce. As for individual purple or red glazes with extremely pure colors, it is more appropriate to call them "purple" or "red" according to the literature.
The development of soy sauce in Jingdezhen
Sauce-glazed porcelain has a long history like celadon and black porcelain. In the long development process of sauce glaze porcelain, the sauce glaze porcelain fired in different periods, different regions and different kiln places is also different and self-contained. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, sauce-glazed porcelain appeared in the southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, and was developed during the two Jin Dynasties. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Northern Porcelain Kiln, represented by the Northern Jiabi Kiln, also began to burn sauce-glazed porcelain, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties developed. During the Song, Liao and Jin dynasties, the production of sauce-glazed porcelain spread throughout the country, but it was still dominated by northern porcelain kilns, and the Dingyao kiln, Yaozhou kiln and Dangyangyu kiln were exemplary models. During the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, with the formation of the national porcelain industry center, the sauce-glazed porcelain produced by the kiln in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, flourished.
On the basis of the firing of the sauce-colored glaze of the Yuan Dynasty, the glaze layer of the sauce-glazed porcelain in the Jingdezhen kiln in the Hongwu period in the early Ming Dynasty was uniform, and the color tone was that buddhist monks wore old monk clothes, so it was also called "old monk's clothes" color. Since then, all the dynasties of the Ming Dynasty have produced sauce-glazed porcelain in Jingdezhen kilns. For example, in 2005, the Ming Dynasty porcelain pit in Maojiawan, Beijing, unearthed 268 pieces of sauce glaze porcelain at one time, including three varieties of outer sauce glaze inner white glaze, outer sauce glaze inner blue flower, and inner and outer sauce glaze. The soil is fine and white, and the glaze color shows different shades of sauce purple, sauce red, sauce yellow, earth yellow and other shades due to differences in glaze composition, glaze thickness, firing atmosphere and temperature. Most of these sauce-glazed porcelains are light and grainless, and the decoration techniques are mainly based on stroke painting, and a small number of engravings and plastic milk nails are also decorated. From the perspective of craftsmanship, shape, glaze color and decorative style, it is similar to the Danyangyu kiln sauce glazed porcelain of the Song Dynasty.
Qing Dynasty sauce glaze porcelain is one of the antique glaze varieties specially produced by Jingdezhen Royal Kiln Factory. At this time, the glaze of the sauce glazed porcelain is shiny and shimmering with a metallic luster, like a purple gold bag setting, so it is called "purple gold glaze". Purple gold glaze almost became synonymous with Qing Dynasty sauce glaze porcelain. In the thirteenth year of Qing Yongzheng (1735), Tang Ying wrote the "Tao Cheng Chronicle": "An imitation purple and gold glaze, there are two kinds of red and yellow. "During the Qianlong Dynasty, the court ordered the Jingdezhen Royal Kiln Factory to imitate the purple gold glaze ware as well, and the Qianlong Chronicle of the Qing Archives recorded: "On June 25, the third year of Qianlong (1738), the eunuch Gao Yujiao made the chief Samuha and the general Bai Shixiu... Purple gold glazed jar... Transmission: Tang Ying was fired to make porcelain, and it was sent as usual. "The personal participation of the emperor and the implantation of royal cultural and artistic nutrients have undoubtedly fundamentally enhanced the noble status of sauce-glazed porcelain."
Sauce glaze porcelain is one of the varieties of high-temperature color glaze in ancient China, when Yangyu kiln sauce glaze porcelain can be called an outstanding representative, "when opened, the brilliance is amazing, copper color is like vermilion white like jade." "Although the glory of The Yangyu kiln sauce glaze porcelain has long faded away in the jinge iron horse and the long wolf smoke, this magnificent but not warm, quiet and not gorgeous, mysterious and not heavy excellent porcelain variety with special beauty has not disappeared in the long river of historical memory, but has rewritten its splendid course with the magnificent official kiln weather, which is also the evocative charm of sauce glaze porcelain. ）
【Expanded appreciation】A group of Northern Dynasty sauce glazed porcelain, is there another rhyme?