Longquan celadons were an important part of China's export economy for over five hundred years, and were widely imitated in other countries, especially Korea and Japan.

The celadons were produced in a range of shades of colour, centred on olive-green, but extending to greenish blues (regarded as desirable, but less common) and browns.

Shapes were originally mostly simple, allowing the glaze colour to create the main effect of a piece, but in later periods raised decoration was common.

Longquan celadon was fired in long dragon kilns, brick tunnels rising up a slope, with a series of chambers, and the best results came from the pots in the uppermost stages, which heated up more slowly and evenly.

[15] The pronounced reddish colour of unglazed areas comes from the end of the firing, as the heated clay comes in contact with fresh air let into the kiln, and the iron present turns into ferrous oxide.

A technique sometimes found before about 1400 was to add spots or splashes of a mixture rich in iron oxide with an appearance of randomness; these fired a dark brown.

The size and decoration of larger fine pieces increases from the Yuan onwards, with some very large vases and lidded wine jars being made by the 14th century.

[20] Funerary vases, made in pairs, also often feature charmingly stylized animals, usually tigers and dragons, curled around the shoulders of the vessel.

[21] Another distinct Longquan style was a dish with two or more fishes in low relief swimming in the centre, either in biscuit or glazed; these sometimes have holes drilled for metal handles, as mentioned in a late 14th-century source.

[24] Religious figurines and shrines were rare before the Yuan, and never a large part of production; as in Qingbai, these sometimes mix biscuit, for the flesh or figure, with a glazed background.

These were also exported in great numbers and, at least in South-East Asian countries such as Japan and Korea, these associations could also be appreciated by local literati, and indeed clergy, as many of the best survivals are in temples.

[32] A very few pieces reached Europe by trade or diplomatic gifts from Islamic countries, and were sometimes given elaborate metalwork mounts, turning them into goblets.

The Katzenelnbogen bowl was bought by an aristocratic German pilgrim in the Holy Land in 1433/34, who on his return had it given a cover and mounts in gilded silver (now Kassel).

A key event in the rise of Longquan celadon was the flight of the remaining Northern Song court to the south, after they lost control of the north in the disastrous Jin-Song wars of the 1120s.

[39] Longquan wares were not from one of the Five Great Kilns later grouped by Chinese connoisseurs, and are rarely mentioned in early writing on the subject, although in the Qing dynasty careful imitations were made.

A story repeated in many sources from the Yuan onwards, with uncertain significance, tells of two brothers called Zhang, both Longquan potters, perhaps in the Southern Song, though this is unclear.

A sunken trade vessel was found in Sinan County off the Korean coast in 1976, whose cargo included over 9,600 pieces of celadon from the Yuan period, though not of the highest quality.

[44] Longquan celadon enjoyed a final period of high achievement under the early Ming dynasty, when it was an official kiln operated by and for the court.