ABSTRACT
I Fujian province. Recent excavation has clarified the location and sequence ofkilns making qinghai porcelain, and has unearthed a significant whiteware that acted as an intermediary between qinghai and later blanc de Chine. Chuimei Ho celebrates work by Chinese archaeologists and interprets their finds for a wider, western language audience. The discussion of the ceramic for which the Dehua kilns came to be most famous, whose quality Pamela Hickley understandably admires, is the major subject of all the authors in this book. This ceramic was not made till the mid-Ming dynasty, when refinement ofbody and glaze led to the manufacture of lustrous white wares, later known in Europe as blanc de Chine and in China as pork-grease white (zhuyouhm) or ivory white (xiangyahm). John Ayers reflects on some of the earliest fifteenth to sixteenth century wares that could be considered true blanc de Chine.
