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.

[5] 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.

[8] The end date of Guan ware is uncertain, but it probably persisted until 1400 or later, as the Ge Gu Yao Lun, a fourteenth century Ming dynasty manual on ceramics by Cao Zhao, seems to treat it as being still produced.

[12] In surviving examples the effect is probably often more striking than it would have been originally, either because collectors have chemically enhanced them, through gradual oxidation over time, or from staining in use.

Imitations in Jingdezhen porcelain seem to have begun under the Yuan dynasty and continue to the present day; these are often hard to date.