page_title: Chinese ceramics
section_title: Types of Chinese pottery
hierarchical_section_title: Chinese ceramics / Types of Chinese pottery
caption_attribution_description: English: This double-humped camel with tiger-faced saddlebag raises its head and bares its teeth. Its maker modeled the figure, allowed it to dry, then covered it with a thin coat of white clay (slip) before applying lead silicate glazes of amber, cream, blue, green and brown. When the camel was later fired, the glazes ran together in the kiln, producing a mottled and streaked effect that evidently appealed to the Tang [T'ang] Chinese. Tie-dyed textiles of the period have a similar character. This camel, like all wares with lead-fluxed glazes, was made to be placed in a tomb, presumably of an important person.
context_page_description: Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era. Chinese ceramics range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles, to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns, to the sophisticated Chinese porcelain wares made for the imperial court and for export. Porcelain was a Chinese invention and is so identified with China that it is still called "china" in everyday English usage.
  Most later Chinese ceramics, even of the finest quality, were made on an industrial scale, thus few names of individual potters were recorded. Many of the most important kiln workshops were owned by or reserved for the emperor, and large quantities of Chinese export porcelain were exported as diplomatic gifts or for trade from an early date, initially to East Asia and the Islamic world, and then from around the 16th century to Europe. Chinese ceramics have had an enormous influence on other ceramic traditions in these areas.
caption: Tang dynasty tomb figure of a camel, made with sancai lead-fluxed glazes, here including cobalt blue but no green.[42]
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