The Cizhou kilns are spread along the Zhang and Fu rivers in southern Hebei, with the main sites at Guantai in Ci County and Pengcheng in Fengfeng. They worked from the Song through the Jin and Yuan, making household bowls, jars and pillows from a coarse local clay. The potters covered the dark body with a white slip and painted or carved through it, producing the black-on-white decoration that gave the ware its name and carried scenes of daily life across the plain.
Cizhou ware was made for ordinary tables along the Zhang and Fu rivers: sturdy bowls, jars and pillows of coarse clay, covered in white slip and painted in black. Its potters wrote poems and painted scenes from plays, and the kilns produced the first overglaze enamels in China.