Petuntse in the context of "Hard-paste porcelain"

Jingdezhen porcelain (Chinese: 景德镇陶瓷) is Chinese porcelain produced in or near Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province in southern China. Jingdezhen may have produced pottery as early as the sixth century CE, though it is named after the reign name of Emperor Zhenzong, in whose reign it became a major kiln site, around 1004. By the 14th century it had become the largest centre of production of Chinese porcelain, which it has remained, increasing its dominance in subsequent centuries. From the Ming period onwards, official kilns in Jingdezhen were controlled by the emperor, making imperial porcelain in large quantity for the court and the emperor to give as gifts.

Although apparently an unpromising location for potteries, being a remote town in a hilly region, Jingdezhen is close to the best quality deposits of petuntse, more contemporarily called pottery stone in China, as well as being surrounded by forests, mostly of pine, providing wood for the kilns. It also has a river leading to river systems flowing north and south, facilitating transport of fragile wares. The imperial kilns were in the centre of the city at Zhushan (Pearl Hill), with many other kilns four kilometres away at Hutian.

Ding ware, Ting ware (Chinese: 定瓷; pinyin: Dìngcí) or Dingyao are Chinese ceramics, mostly porcelain, that were produced in the prefecture of Dingzhou (formerly romanized as "Ting-chou") in Hebei in northern China. The main kilns were at Jiancicun or Jianci in Quyang County. They were produced between the Tang and Yuan dynasties of imperial China, though their finest period was in the 11th century, under the Northern Song. The kilns "were in almost constant operation from the early eighth until the mid-fourteenth century."

The most characteristic wares are thin porcelains with a white or greyish body and a nearly transparent white-tinted glaze, though they are classed as stoneware by some. Chemical analysis has shown that they were often made entirely of a kaolinitic clay without any petuntse or "porcelain stone". They are mostly decorated with uncoloured designs that are incised or in very shallow relief.