Guan ware

Guan ware or Kuan ware (Chinese: 官窯; pinyin: guān yáo; Wade–Giles: kuan-yao) is one of the Five Famous Kilns of Song Dynasty China, making high-status stonewares, whose surface decoration relied heavily on crackled glaze, randomly crazed by a network of crack lines in the glaze.

Guan means "official" in Chinese and Guan ware was, most unusually for Chinese ceramics of the period, the result of an imperial initiative resulting from the loss of access to northern kilns such as those making Ru ware and Jun ware after the invasion of the north and the flight of a Song prince to establish the Southern Song at a new capital at Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. It is usually assumed that potters from the northern imperial kilns followed the court south to man the new kilns.

In some Asian sources "Guan ware" may be used in the literally translated sense to cover any "official" wares ordered by the Imperial court.

The new Southern Song court was established in Hangzhou in 1127, but some time probably elapsed before the kiln was established; this may not have been until after hostilities with the invaders were concluded in 1141. According to Chinese historical sources, the first kiln was actually within or beside the palace precinct, described as in the "back park", and was called or was at "Xiuneisi". Various places around the city have been explored, and ceramic remains found, but perhaps because of subsequent building on the site, the location of this kiln remained uncertain, and it is now thought that the name might refer to the controlling office rather than the actual kiln site. Following excavations in starting in 1996 it is now thought that the site has been found, as the Laohudong or Tiger Cave Kiln [老虎洞窑] on the outskirts of the city. An old Yue ware dragon kiln had been revived, but the official wares were made in a northern-style mantou kiln, rare this far south.

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