YiXing purple clay /Yixing Violet Sand Earthenware
Yixing violet sand earthenware is the most famous pottery made using violet-colored sand, a local material with a hard and fine texture, dark colors, and used for exquisite workmanship. Different mixing techniques and cooking temperatures results in works of a variety of colors such as azure, chestnut, dark red, pear yellow, vermillion purple, crabapple red, light grey, greenish black, and more.
This most iconic of Chinese pottery boasts varied shapes and delicate combinations of lines and planes. Two major designs exist, including imitations of certain natural objects such as fruits or flowers. Major products include tea sets, flower pots, and others, with tea sets being the most famous. The earthenware is fantastic for maintaining the scent of the tea while infusing, and the color of the liquid during storage. On hot days, tea does not spoil if sitting in a violet sand tea set, and the material allows such that it holds heat but does not burn the hands. Of them all, the violet sand tea set was named the king of tea sets around the world.
Qinzhou Nixing pottery
Nixing pottery of Qinzhou in the Guangxi Province, one of the 4 famous types of pottery in China, is hailed as a most unique art. It is a specialty of Qinzhou and made from peculiar red clay. Nixing pottery has a history of over 1,000 years, and the oldest pieces found were produced around 618 AD. In recent years, this type of earthenware became popular again and has increased in popularity among collectors and consumers both domestically and abroad.
Through the unique quality of the clay and its delicate craftsmanship, Qinzhou Nixing pottery appears archaic, with a bronze or dark reddish brown color. It usually includes a flambé glaze and turns azure after being fired in high temperatures. Moreover, its surfaces become surprisingly smooth after polishing. The variety of typical Nixing pottery items is over 600, with the majority being tea sets, stationery, tableware, vases, coffee utensils, incense tripods, and antique imitations.
Nixing pottery is also popular because of its unique functions. It can withstand strong acids and bases, keeps things fresh against dampness, and is non-toxic. The pieces also maintain the taste and color of tea for days, and even in hot weather, tea stored in the pottery does not spoil. This also applies to food. Moreover, a tea scent lingers in the pot after it has been used for a long time, and the fragrant herbal scent continues to exists, even without tea, by pouring hot water into the pot.
Jianshui Pottery
Jianshui pottery is short for Jianshui artistic pottery, a wonderful style of Chinese artistic earthenware with a history of more than 200 years.Producing artistic pottery takes a combination of high-quality materials and well-developed techniques, each complementary and indispensable to each other. Jianshui pottery is just the kind of high-quality pottery to result from such a perfect combination. Around Wanyao Village in the suburb of the town of Jianshui, the abundant clay contained in the surrounding area is of excellent quality and suitable for making high-grade pottery due to its fineness, glossiness, and good viscosity. Families of pottery craftsmen have been making Jianshui pottery for generations. Various types of these works are made with 5-color clay through delicate processes like body blank, painting, carving, scraping, clinkering, and polishing. They are beautifully shaped with elegant and antique vintage patterns, and their outsides are fine and glossy. The brightly colored surfaces are shiny and, when you knock on it, the sound is like knocking on bronze and stone tablets. All of these features reflect the strong ancient ethnic flavor of China.
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