Jun Ware · Rose Purple

01The story

Jun ware became famous in the Song dynasty for entering the kiln in one colour and leaving in many. Copper separates out in a reducing atmosphere, and the colour shifts with kiln position, body thickness and glaze depth: rose purple, crab-apple red, earthworm tracks in the mud, blue-grey and cream. That unpredictability is both its charm and its problem, because an interface needs to be predictable. This theme keeps the uncontrollable part in the story and in the middle of the palette; what actually reaches the interface are the tamed layers.

02Where the colours come from

The ground takes the cream end of the kiln range, seen where Jun glaze thins at the rim; the panel takes a lotus-root purple; the accent is a deepened shade of the rose purple. Crab-apple red is not used as an accent but appears as a short fading band at the top of a card.

03How the palette was built

This is the only set in the porcelain collection with a clear violet cast, so the ground has to stay neutral enough: rice white and lotus root sandwich the violet so the interface does not turn heavy. Body text uses a deep ink with a violet cast rather than pure black, which keeps text and panels in the same family.

04Sources and references

• ClassicA History of Chinese Ceramics (中国陶瓷史)Feng XianmingJun firing technique, the mechanism behind copper red, and the kiln sites.
• ClassicYinliuzhai Shuoci (饮流斋说瓷)Ji Yuansou (Chen Liu), Qing dynastyRecords and critical vocabulary for kiln transmutation and violet glazes.
• ClassicTaoya (陶雅)Chen Jieqi, Qing dynastyA catalogue of Jun wares and the names given to their glaze colours.

05Credits and licence

Palette

Theme Atlas editorial team

Text

Theme Atlas editorial team

Graphics

Theme Atlas (original SVG)

Data licence

Palette data released under CC BY 4.0

Illustration licence

All illustrations are original SVGs; no third-party imagery is used.