Green-glazed pottery
Encyclopedia
Green-glazed pottery was a type of colored pottery developed in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 during the Eastern Han period (25-220 CE). The body of green-glazed pottery ceramics was made of clay, coated with a layer of glaze, and fired at a temperature of 800 degrees Celsius. Green-glazed pottery is a type of lead-glazed
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

 pottery (Chinese: 鉛釉陶器): lead oxyde was the principal flux
Flux
In the various subfields of physics, there exist two common usages of the term flux, both with rigorous mathematical frameworks.* In the study of transport phenomena , flux is defined as flow per unit area, where flow is the movement of some quantity per time...

 in the glaze, often mixed with quartz
Quartz
Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...

 in the proportion of 3:1. The polychrome effect was obtained by using as coloring agent copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 (which turns green).

Due to the low firing temperature, these objects are fragile and have high water absorption.

Green-glazed pottery was to be followed by Sancai
Sancai
Sancai is a type of ceramics using three intermingled colors for decoration.-Technique:The body of Sancai ceramics was made of white clay, coated with a layer of glaze, and fired at a temperature of 800 degrees Celsius. Sancai is a type of lead-glazed pottery: lead oxide was the principal flux in...

polychrome glazes from the 7th century during the Tang period.
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