Painted Pottery is an art form that has been practiced in China since the Neolithic period.

Theearly potters of the Neolithic and the Xia Dynasty, decorated theirpottery with image that reflected the daily lives of the cultures. Theimages of fish, animals, people and those of geometric designs werewidely distributed throughout the pottery of the early period ofpottery history. This was not only so with the Chinese pottery makersbut it was a feature common to all potters of all the peoples acrossthe world. The Making of pottery was a characteristic feature of allsocieties that were engaged in an agricultural based life-style.Pottery was used extensively for storage of grains and for the cookingand preparation of food stuffs. Pottery was an essential part of thedaily lives of all the agrarian cultures.

Thedevelopment of art, culture and the changing nature of the lives ofpeople lead to the creation of new styles and forms of pottery. Theultimate development of pottery was the making of porcelain with itsenhanced range and diversity of products. Porcelain became the dominantforce in pottery making and was throughout the Zhou, Han and TangDynasties a major feature of the art of the Chinese peoples.

Theinitial stages in the development of porcelain was the increaseddiversification of the painted pottery. The Xia and Shang periods, arecharacterized by primitive designs but, these early works were soonreplaced by more elaborated creations. The use of painted potterytechniques in the production of figurines during the Han and Suidynasties is testimony to the advanced nature of the products.

PaintedPottery continued to be produced throughout all of the dynasties ofChinese history though it has almost always existed in the shadow ofporcelain. Along with Celadon porcelain it was the main product used bythe people for their day to day activities. Cooking and foodpreparation was usually done with pottery rather than with porcelain.

Fromthe middle of the Tang Dynasty, porcelain became a more artisticproduct and was seldom used for domestic purposes; this is especiallytrue for the high quality porcelains produced throughout the Yuan, Mingand Qing Dynasties.

Today, the roles aresomewhat reversed, the use of porcelain has tended to become more of adomestically used product and painted pottery an artistic form. Sincethe late 17th century the production of porcelain has grown to such anextent that it is a common everyday item within most households.Dinner-sets, and " crockery " in general are all to a large extentproduced from either porcelain or from " china-ware". China-ware isactually similar to porcelain though it is fired at a lower temperature.

PaintedPottery has become in the last twenty years a product that is almostpurely decorative. Seldom is painted pottery ever used as a domesticproduct. The painted pottery produced today is of a highly decorativenature, the extensive use of colour combined with traditional designsof the Tang and Ming periods create works that are artistic andaesthetically pleasing.

Painted Pottery of thehighest quality is produced in Central China around the western city ofChendu. The area has become a center for such works although thequality varies greatly from one producer to the next.

Highquality Painted Pottery is characterized by a thin wall constructionthat is similar to porcelain in nature and combined with brightlycoloured enamels that, when added to the ancient raw materials,produces a product with a character and quality that is unique untoitself.

Silkporcelain.com supply a range ofpainted pottery that is individually selected based on the standards ofstyle, construction and paint quality that is of the highest level.