Stoneware

Article summary

tea bowl with "hare's fur" glaze, southern Song dynasty, 12th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art (see below) Stoneware is a broad class of pottery fired at a relatively high temperature, to be impervious to water. A modern definition is a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire clay. This definition excludes stone vessels that are carved from a solid piece of stone. End applications of stoneware include tableware and decorative ware such as vases. Stoneware is fired at between about to . Historically, reaching such temperatures was a long-lasting challenge, and temperatures somewhat below these were used for a long time. It was developed independently in different locations around the world, after earthenware and before porcelain. Stoneware is not recognised as a category in traditional East Asian terminology, and much Asian stoneware, such as Chinese Ding ware for example, is counted as porcelain by local definitions. Terms such as "porcellaneous" or "near-porcelain" may be used in such cases. Traditional East Asian thinking classifies pottery only into "low-fired" and "high-fired" wares, equating to earthenware and porcelain, without the intermediate European class of stoneware, and the many local types of stoneware were mostly classed as porcelain, though often not white and translucent.…

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