Ash glaze

Japanese Bizen ware
MFA# 92.3283

Description

A Ceramic glaze that contains a high proportion of plant ash. Ash was used as a glaze component since the Han dynasty in China. Because a wide variety of waste products (wood, leaves, seed pods, Sawdust, Bark, etc.) are used to produce ash, it has a wide range of compositions (Silica, Potash, Lime, Carbon, etc.). This variability in composition gives unreliable and often unsatisfactory, results.

Vietnamese ewer
MFA# 1991.988

Synonyms and Related Terms

glaçure à la cendre (Fr.); as glazuur (Ned.); vidrado de cinzas (Port.)

Resources and Citations

• Ralph Mayer, A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1969 (also 1945 printing)

• Henry Hodges, Artifacts: An Introduction to Early Materials and Technology, Ronald P. Frye, Kingston, Canada, 1988

• Robert Fournier, Illustrated Dictionary of Practical Pottery, Chilton Book Company, Radnor, PA, 1992

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000