page_title: Chinese ceramics
section_title: Ge ware
hierarchical_section_title: Chinese ceramics / Types of Chinese pottery / Ge ware
caption_attribution_description: English: Percival David Collection, Room 95, British Museum
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.
context_section_description: Ge (Wade–Giles:  ko), literally "big-brother" ware, due to a legend of two brothers working in Longquan, one made the typical celadon style ceramics, the elder made ge ware, produced in his private kiln. Ming dynasty commentator Gao Lian writes that the ge kiln took its clay from the same site as Guan ware, accounting for the difficulty in distinguishing one from the other (though Gao thinks "Ge is distinctly inferior" to Guan). Overall, Ge remains somewhat elusive, but basically comprises two types—one with a 'warm rice-yellow glaze and two sets of crackles, a more prominent set of darker colour interspersed with a finer set of reddish lines' (called chin-ssu t'ieh-hsien or 'golden floss and iron threads', which can just faintly be detected on this bowl). The other Ge ware is much like Guan ware, with grayish glaze and one set of crackles. Once thought to have only been manufactured alongside Longquan celadon, per its legendary founding, Ge is now believed to have also been produced at Jingdezhen.
  While similar to Guan ware, Ge typically has a grayish-blue glaze that is fully opaque with an almost matte finish. Its crackle pattern is exaggerated, often standing out in bold black. Though still shrouded in mystery, many specialists believe that Ge ware did not develop until the very late Southern Song dynasty or even the Yuan dynasty. In any case, enthusiasm for it persisted throughout the Ming dynasty; Wen Zhenheng preferred it to all other types of porcelain, in particular for brush washers and water droppers (although he preferred jade brush washers to porcelain, Guan and Ge were the best ceramic ones, especially if they have scalloped rims). Differences between later Ming imitations of Song/Yuan Ge include: Ming versions substitute a white porcelain body; they tend to be produced in a range of new shapes, for example those for the scholar's studio; glazes tend to be thinner and more lustrous; and slip is applied to the rim and base to simulate the "brown mouth and iron foot" of Guan ware.
caption: Ge-type vase, with "gold thread and iron wire" double crackle
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