Multi-colored glazes on Jianzhan bowls

Jianzhan bowls have several main types of multi-colored glazes: Shihong, Chaemo, Qingyou, Guilewen, Huipi, Huibai, Jianyou. Their features are described in more detail below.

Shihong Glaze (Chinese: 柿红, pinyin: Shìhóng, literally "persimmon red"): the luster on the glaze surface is not very strong, and there are small dark red crystalline dots on the red-brown background. This effect is caused by the very high temperature in the kiln, which leads to the appearance of a large number of spots; this effect also occurs when the reducing environment is insufficient or when the iron oxide content in the unfired clay is low.

Chaemo Glaze (Chinese: 茶叶末, pinyin: Cháyèmò, literally "Crushed Tea Leaf" or "Tea Crush"), also known as Zhimahua (Chinese: 芝麻花, pinyin: Zhīma Huā, literally "Sesame Flower"): According to one school of thought, these are inferior products resulting from insufficient kiln firing time and intensity; another school of thought says that this effect is caused by the bowls being buried underground for many years, which allowed soil to fall onto the glaze and affect its condition.

Huipi Glaze (Chinese: 灰皮, pinyin: Huīpí, literally "Grey Skin" or "Ash Skin"): the glaze layer is evenly distributed, with mammillary formations on its surface; the color of the glaze is gray-black, and there is a very thin black layer inside the gray layer.

Qingyou Glaze (Chinese: 青釉, pinyin: Qīngyòu, literally "Light Green", "Greenish Blue" or "Celadon"): the glaze layer is uniform and thin, the color resembles green apples, there is also a crackle effect (cracks in the glaze).

Guiliwen glaze (Chinese: 龟裂纹, pinyin: Guīlièwén, literally "turtle-shell crack pattern"): the glaze layer is fairly uniform, and dark brown cracks are evenly distributed across the glaze surface. This pattern can be found on many types of Jianzhan bowls: for example, the Huipi, Huibai and Jianyou bowls mentioned here all feature the Guiliwen pattern to varying degrees, which is especially noticeable on the incompletely fired wares (those fired at low temperatures for a short time).

Huibai Glaze (Chinese: 灰白, pinyin: Huībái, literally "Grey-white" or "Ash-white"): the glaze is grey-white, applied evenly, some bowls have a pattern of crystalline matte milky spots, while others have black spots, within the greyish layer of glaze there is a very thin layer of white. Some bowls of this type also quite often have patterned cracks (craquelure).

Jiangyou Glaze (Chinese: 酱釉, pinyin: Jiàngyòu, literally "Soy Sauce Glaze"): the surface of the glaze is green-brown, rough and does not have a strong shine. If you look at it in the plane of application of the glaze drops, you can see that the lower (inner) layer of glaze is shiny black, and only its thinnest upper layer is green-brown.

Note 1: Jizhou-fired pottery (Chinese: 吉州窑, pinyin: Jízhōuyáo) is a type of pottery produced during the Song Dynasty in Jizhou County (now Yonghe Town, Ji'an City, Jiangxi Province).