This small shard with combed decoration comes from a large heavily potted bowl. It has a thick green-toned glaze. Thickly-glazed celadons (a generic European term for ceramics with green, iron-based glazes) were mass-produced and widely exported from the Southern Song to the early Ming period. Chinese celadons have made their way to Southeast Asia, Japan and even Egypt. They were also used domestically sometimes as tea-drinking vessels. The glaze chemistry and firing conditions determined the colour of the celadon glaze, which ranged from bluish-green to olive-green. The finest Longquan celadons were highly prized for their smooth and lustrous glazes that resembled polished jade.
