Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers: Chinese Brown- And Black-Glazed Ceramics, 400–1400 0916724883

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ares Fur, Tortoiseshell,

and

Lartridge Feathers

Hare's

Fur, Tortoiseshell,

and lartridge feathers CHINESE

BROWN- AND

BLACK-GLAZED

Robert D. Mowry WITH

CONTRIBUTIONS

BY

Eugene Farrell Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere

HARVARD

UNIVERSITY

CAMBRIDGE,

ART

MUSEUMS

MASSACHUSETTS

CERAMICS,

400-1400

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers: Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics, 400-1400 is the catalogue of an exhibition organized by the Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The exhibition was funded, in part, by the Museums’ David A. Ellis Oriental Art Fund and by the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency. Publication of the catalogue was supported by the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange and by the Museums’ Shumei Culture Foundation Fund, F. Y. Chang Family Fund, and Peter Drucker Research and Exhibition Fund. Additional support came from J. J. Lally & Company, Payne Street Imports, Mr. and Mrs. James E. Breece III, Mr.

Robert H. Ellsworth, and

Dr. Robert E. Barron III. EXHIBITION

TOUR:

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts 23 December 1995 — 10 March 1996 China Institute Gallery, New York 20 April — 6 July 1996 Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison 9g November 1996 — 19 January 1997 Copyright © 1996 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the Harvard University Art Museums. Illustrations not otherwise credited copyright © Harvard University Art Museums, 19906.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mowry,

Robert D.

Hare’s fur, tortoiseshell, and partridge feathers : Chinese brown- and black-glazed ceramics, 400-1400 / Robert D. Mowry : with contributions by Eugene Farrell, Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere. pcm. Exhibitions: Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Cambridge,

Mass., Dec.

23, 1995 — Mar.

10, 1996; China

Institute Gallery, N.Y., Apr. 20 — July 6, 1996; Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin,

Madison,

Nov.

9, 1996 — Jan.

19, 1997.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-916724—88-—3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Chien yao ware

Exhibitions.

dynasties, 960—1368—Exhibitions.

2. Pottery, Chinese—Sung-Ytian I. Farrell, Eugene.

II. Rousmaniere,

Nicole Coolidge, date. III. Arthur M. Sackler Museum. IV. China Institute Gallery. V. Elvehjem Museum of Art. VI. Title. NK4165.4.M68

1996

738.3'09§1'07473—dc20

96-1692 CIP

Produced by the Publications Department, Harvard University Art Museums Project Director: Evelyn Rosenthal Editor: Dawn Carelli Photographs: Michael Nedzweski, Harvard University Art Museums Photographic Services, unless otherwise noted Book design: Christopher Kuntze Printer: The

Stinehour Press, Lunenburg,

Vermont

Composed in Bembo and Eve types. Printed in the United States on acid-free paper. Cover illustration: Detail of Meiping Bottle with Phoenix and Cloud Decor,

Southern Song to Yuan period, 13—14th century, cat. no. 103.

(_ontents

Lenders to the Exhibition

Foreword James Cuno Preface

ad

Robert D. Mowry Acknowledgments

17

Map

20

Chronology

21

Chinese BrownGlazed Ceramics:

and BlackAn Overview

Robert D. Mowry

Defining Temmoku: Jian Ware Tea Bowls Imported into Japan Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere

Chinese Brown- and BlackGlazed Ceramics of the Song Dynasty: Technical Considerations Eugene Farrell

Catalogue of the Exhibition Robert D. Mowry

23

eS

59

79

Selected Bibliography

272

Photographic Credits

280

|_enders

to the Fachibition

Anonymous Lender

Ralph C. Marcove, M.D.

The Art Institute of Chicago

DavidJ. Menke, M.D.

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Cambridge, Massachusetts The Asia Society, New York

The Nelson-Atkins Museum

of Art,

Kansas City, Missour1

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

The Newark Museum

Dr. Robert Barron

Saint Louis Art Museum

Mr. and Mrs. James E. Breece III

Denise and Andrew Saul

Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Briefel

Diane H. Schafer

The Cleveland Museum of Art

The Scheinman Collection

Denver Art Museum

The Shinkeido Collection

The R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private

The Sze Hong Collection, through

Collection

the Denver Art Museum

Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr.

Mr. and Mrs. Janos Szekeres

Robert M. Ferris [V

University of Michigan Museum

Dr. and Mrs. Marvin L. Gordon

of Art, Ann Arbor

foreword

A ssannes CHINESE brown- and black-glazed ceramics rank among the most impressive accomplishments of the potter’s art, and although scholars have long recognized their importance, Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, which focuses on wares from the “Golden Age”—the Song, Jin, and Yuan periods—is the first exhibition to feature such works in the United States. This 1s all the more surprising because of the immediate appeal of these delicately finished, superbly shaped, and deeply colored wares. Even to the untutored eye, their beauty is obvious; that they are in some cases more than a thousand years old makes them all the more astonishing. It is most fitting that we offer this exhibition and the groundbreaking catalogue that accompanies it, for the Arthur M. Sackler Museum not only has an excellent collection of Chinese brown- and black-gazed wares—indeed, the Sackler is the single largest lender to the exhibition—but Harvard has had a long and proud tradition of teaching the history of Asian art. Our Department of Fine Arts was the first in the United States to offer courses in Chinese art, for example, and it continues to offer both undergraduate and graduate instruction in this important field. As a teaching curator, Robert Mowry—the

Sackler’s Curator of Chinese Art,

the organizer of this exhibition, and the principal author of its catalogue—ofters courses on Chinese and Korean ceramics, much as his predecessor, John Rosenfield, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art, emeritus, offered courses on

Japanese art. One of Professor Rosenfield’s students, Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, 1s a contributor to the catalogue, writing on relationships between Chinese and Japanese ceramics, the Japanese not only having imported Chinese dark-glazed wares but having taken them as models for their own tea ceramics. Nicole, who took courses on Chinese ceramics with Robert Mowry, just completed a Whitney Fellowship at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and has accepted an appointment as Lecturer on Japanese Art at the School of World Art Studies and Museology, University of East Anglia, in Norwich, England. A third Harvard contributor is Eugene Farrell, the Art Museums’

Senior Conservation Scientist, who, with a series of students and

conservation interns, conducted analytical and technical studies on the bodies and glazes of many of the ceramics featured in the exhibition and its catalogue; the results of those investigations shed new light on the scientific aspects and on the date and place of manufacture of individual pieces. Thus, as organizer, lender, and, as it were, author, we are most pleased to present this exhibition to the scholarly community and to the general public alike.

Of course, we could not have done it alone. Twenty-five other lenders— institutions and individuals from throughout the country—have generously and trustingly contributed their precious objects for presentation in the exhibition; we could not be more grateful. Thanks are also due to those who contributed financial assistance. The National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency, provided significant funding for the exhibition, as did the Art Museums’ David A. Ellis Oriental Art Fund. Major support for the catalogue came from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange and from the Museums’ Shumei Culture Foundation Fund. Monies from the Museums’ Peter Drucker Research and Exhibition Fund underwrote the costs of a research assistant, while monies from the Museums’

F. Y.

Chang Family Fund, combined with contributions from Payne Street Imports, J. J. Lally & Company, Mr. and Mrs. James E. Breece III, Mr. Robert H. Ellsworth, and

Dr. Robert E. Barron ensured the publication of the catalogue in full color. Exhibitions of this kind, which mean to explore through objects gathered from many sources the subtle aesthetic and technical aspects of delicate art forms from cultures and centuries far removed from our own, require the cooperation of many people in numerous departments throughout the Art Museums. Jane Montgomery and her staff in the Registrars Office, particularly Rachel Vargas, have brought these objects together and expertly managed their travel from venue to venue; Danielle

Hanrahan and the Exhibitions Department have designed and executed an elegant and secure installation; Rebecca Wright and Marian Myszkowski in the Friends Office, in concert with Anne Powell and Porter Mansfield in my own office, organized educational programs to complement the exhibition; Michael Nedzweski, Elizabeth Gombosi, and the staff of the Photographic Services Department provided color transparencies and black-and-white details of objects in our permanent collection; and Evelyn Rosenthal of the Publications Department worked tirelessly with the catalogue’s designer, Christopher Kuntze, and managed its production from start to finish; we acknowledge here their high level of professionalism and generosity of spirit. But our greatest debt 1s to Robert Mowry, the exhibition’s curator. His knowledge of ceramics in general, and of Chinese wares in particular, has given authority and originality to the project, just as his distinguished taste and connoisseur’s eye have ensured its beauty. No artistic tradition has a more persuasive champion than Chinese ceramics has in Bob. And, on behalf of my colleagues at Harvard, as well as

those at the China Institute Gallery in New York and at the University of Wisconsin’s Elvehjem Museum of Art in Madison, with whom we are very pleased to share this exhibition, we offer him our heartfelt thanks.

James Cuno Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director Harvard University Art Museums

10

Foreword

Hela Ce

Tur

SEEDS

for this exhibition were sown when, on a museum visit as a

graduate student in the early 1970s, I saw a Jizhou leaf bowl

similar to one in this

exhibition (catalogue number 107). The bowl captured my imagination, leading me eventually to seek out other Chinese brown- and black-glazed wares and to study the culture that produced them. My appointment in 1977 as Assistant Curator of Oriental Art at the Fogg Art Museum brought me into contact with Harvard’s distinguished holdings of Chinese dark-glazed wares, most of which were given by Ernest B. (Class of 1892) and Helen Pratt Dane in 1942. As Curator of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection at The Asia Society, New York, from 1980 through 1986,

I enjoyed responsibility for a small but surpassing collection of Asian art that includes several rare dark-glazed ceramics; graciously lent for this exhibition, those vessels enhanced my understanding of the Chinese ceramic heritage and provided me with a lasting standard of quality by which to measure other pieces. During those several years in New York, I also met numerous curators, collectors, connoisseurs, and dealers

who not only showed me their collections on repeated occasions but shared with me their knowledge of Chinese ceramics. My return to the Harvard University Art Museums in late 1986 brought renewed contact with the Dane Collection and the chance to organize this exhibition around its considerable strengths. In point of fact, Wango

H. C. Weng, then President of China Institute in

America, New York, had invited me already in 1985 to organize an exhibition of Chinese brown- and black-glazed ceramics for the Institute’s China House Gallery (now China Institute Gallery). My involvement as co-curator of The Asia Society's The Chinese Scholar’s Studio: Artistic Life in the Late Ming Period, an exhibition drawn from the holdings of the Shanghai Museum, prevented immediate work on the darkglazed ceramics exhibition, however. Although it further delayed the project, my 1986 return to Cambridge afforded the opportunity to organize the exhibition for my home institution, utilizing Harvard’s collections, libraries, and scientific laboratories.

Research for the exhibition began in earnest in the late 1980s, only to be interrupted in 1991 by the Art Museums’ very fortunate acquisition of the Gregory and Maria C. Henderson Collection of Korean ceramics, which was featured in the Sackler’s 1992 exhibition First Under Heaven. Work on the present exhibition resumed in 1993, with

visits to numerous museums and private collections to select the objects gathered here, and with assiduous research in various libraries to bring the latest archaeological data to bear on their identification and dating.

id

Frustrating as they have been, the delays in bringing this exhibition to fruition have permitted us time to complete the numerous scientific investigations whose results constitute an important component of this catalogue; without that additional time, the analyses could not have been done, or at least not in such detail. The several postponements have also afforded me access to the significant body of archaeological data that has been published on brown- and black-glazed ceramics during the past ten years; even a cursory glance at the notes and bibliography will reveal how many attributions rely on Chinese archaeological reports published in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The catalogue would have been slimmer had it been published in 1990; it would now be wholly out-of-date had it been published in 1985. While it often seems

that only the sciences advance with breathtaking speed, a decade can significantly alter our view of the past, as newly recovered evidence provides answers to old questions even as it poses new ones. It is especially fitting that we share this exhibition with China Institute, since the idea for the show originated there. As a university museum, we are delighted to share it with the University of Wisconsin’s Elvehjem Museum of Art in Madison, as well; Wisconsin recently demonstrated its commitment to the history of Chinese art with the appointment to its faculty of Julia K. Murray. As Assistant Curator of Oriental Art at the Harvard University Art Museums from 1983 through 1986, Julia gained a familiarity with the Dane

Collection,

and thus with the core of this exhibition,

that

will enrich her presentation of the show to her students. Thanks are due to all those curators, collectors, connoisseurs, and dealers who welcomed me into their offices, storerooms, and homes and who shared their knowledge with me. Despite its formidable strengths, the Dane Collection is neither so large

nor so comprehensive as to permit an exhibition of the size and scope represented here. Without the the generosity of numerous individuals and institutions, neither this exhibition nor this catalogue could have come about. The list of Lenders to the Exhibition records those who temporarily entrusted their ceramics to our hands for presentation to the public; the list of Acknowledgments recognizes the numerous others who contributed expertise, encouragement, and assistance.

The photographers whose fine work graces this catalogue are acknowledged in the list of Photographic Credits. In particular, I am much indebted to Michael Nedzweski and Elizabeth Gombosi of the Art Museums’ Photographic Services Department, who photographed works in the Museums’ collection. Their good cheer and high professionalism remained intact to the end; even then, they managed to greet each new assurance that “This bowl will be the last” as if it held the ring of truth. Special mention must also go to Maggie Nimkin, who, thanks to her association with many private collectors in New York City and vicinity, shot more of the color transparencies than any other photographer. Yen-shew Lynn Chao, Librarian of the Fine Arts Library’s Riibel Asiatic Research Collection, answered my every request—be it for assistance in tracking information or for the order of yet another book—with characteristic good humor and swift action, as did her assistants, Linda Takata and Gideon Wu. The staffs of the

12

Preface

Yenching Library, under the direction of Eugene Wu, and of the Fine Arts Library, under the direction of Jeffry L. Horrell, also accommodated my every request with alacrity and unstinting professionalism. I am grateful to James Cuno, the Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums, and to Edgar Peters Bowron, his predecessor, for their unwavering support. Each immediately recognized the beauty and importance of Chinese brown- and black-glazed ceramics and enthusiastically endorsed the project, as did John Rosenfield, who, until his retirement in 1991, was the Museums’ Curator of Asian Art. Their wholehearted backing ensured the project’s success from the beginning. The friendly advice and constructive criticism offered by fellow curators in the Art Museums saved me from any number of intellectual pitfalls. I am much indebted to my collaborators, Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere and Eugene Farrell, for their contributions to this catalogue. Their expertise in Japanese ceramics and in the scientific examination of works of art, respectively, brings a breadth to the catalogue that would otherwise be sorely lacking. As conservation interns at the Harvard University Art Museums in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Eva

Sander, Valentine Talland, Carol Warner, and Hope Gumprecht did the technical research on Chinese brown- and black-glazed ceramics that laid the foundation for Gene Farrell’s essay. In a seminar on the technical examination of works of art that Gene and his colleagues in the Conservation Center offered through the Department of Fine Arts in 1990, graduate student Earl S. Tai made an in-depth study of a russetglazed bowl in the Harvard collections (no. 15), proving it to be Ding ware and detailing its now-obscured decorative scheme. The line drawing reproduced in catalogue entry 15 was adapted from his term paper. Enrolling in the same seminar when offered again in 1992, Vivina Rhee and Ellen Rhinard, both of whom had previously taken a course on Chinese ceramics with me, examined Song-dynasty bowls with metal rims and were thus able to supply information on the metal band affixed to the Jian tea bowl then recently acquired by the Art Museums (no. 77). Research assistants Stella Kao, Dorothy Wong, Mao Liu, and Shi-yee Liu Fiedler successively proved themselves indispensable, not only in assembling a wealth of research materials drawn from Chinese archaeological journals but, equally importantly, in organizing and cataloguing the data in a manner that made pertinent information readily retrievable. Needless to say, their assistance in summarizing articles and in interpreting difficult passages of Chinese is greatly appreciated; any and all errors in the catalogue, however, are my own. My staffin the Department of Asian Art also contributed mightily to the success of the project. Though joining the Museums as Assistant Curator for Japanese Art only in November 1995, Anne Rose Kitagawa cheerfully proofread label copy and catalogue manuscript alike and assisted with the exhibition’s installation, as did Curatorial Assistant Shokoofeh H. Kafi. During her two years as a curatorial intern (1993-95), Keiko Takahashi helped me wade through research materials in Japanese and saw to the proper transliteration of names and terms in her native tongue; again, however, all mistakes are my own. In addition, by relieving me of curatorial and

Preface

13

administrative matters that I would otherwise have had to tend myself, Shokoofeh, Keiko, and Anne Rose afforded me the time necessary to write this catalogue. I am most grateful. Numerous colleagues within the Art Museums have been instrumental in organizing this exhibition. Deputy Director Frances Beane and Exhibitions Coordinator Rosaline de Butts negotiated the contracts that enable the exhibition to travel to the China Institute Gallery and to the Elvehjem Museum of Art, while Jane Montgomery, Registrar, and Rachel Vargas, Associate Registrar, orchestrated arrangements both for bringing together the many loans and for touring the assembled works to the other venues. Danielle Hanrahan designed the extraordinarily handsome gallery installation, which her staffin the Exhibitions Department brought into being with long-practiced and now-expected perfection. Carolann Barrett, the Exhibition Department’s graphics designer, oversaw preparation of the gallery labels and text panels and composed the map that appears in this catalogue. Henry Lie and the staff of Art Museums’ Straus Conservation Center not only conserved those ceramics from the Museums’ collection that required attention, but examined each loan on arrival to ascertain its good condition. Nancy Buschini, in particular, devoted numerous hours to the repair and inpainting of a damaged but exceptionally important Jizhou bowl in the Harvard collections (no. 99), readying it for presentation in the show. Rebecca Wright, Marian Myszkowski, and the staff of the Friends Office organized a series of gallery talks and

Chinese music and dance performances to complement the exhibition, while Ericka Carlson, Anne Powell, and Porter Mansfield in the Director’s Office brought into

reality the program of lectures on Song-dynasty ceramics to be featured in the Museums’ M. Victor Leventritt Symposium on Saturday, 3 February 1996. Jeannette

Fullerton and her corps of docents designed the exhibition tours that many will remember as the highlight of their visit to the Museums. Kate McShea prepared the press materials associated with the show and worked her usual magic in attracting widespread interest and acknowledgment. Susan Kany, formerly of the Museums’ Development Office, and Nancy Osher-Blumberg, formerly the Museums’ Financial Officer, assisted in the preparation of grant applications, which resulted in major funding from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation. Stephanie Schilling and the staff of the Financial Office have exercised the sound fiscal planning and financial oversight that enabled us to produce the exhibition and catalogue on a relatively modest budget. Responsibility for publication of the catalogue fell to Evelyn Rosenthal and her assistant, Becky Hunt, in the Museums’ Publications Office. Evelyn exercised seasoned judgment in engaging Dawn Carelli as the catalogue’s copy editor and Christopher Kuntze as its designer. Dawn not only gave my prose a polish I could never have attained on my own, but gave an overlay of homogeneity to the work of three authors with vastly differing styles. Her heroic efforts are acknowledged with thanks and gratitude. Working under tight deadlines and with materials invariably submitted late, Christopher Kuntze transformed our packages of manuscript pages, computer diskettes, and color transparencies into a strikingly beautiful catalogue whose elegant design and dignified type lend authority to the text. 14

Preface

Most of all, I remain indebted to my teachers, Chu-tsing Li and the late

Laurence Sickman, who introduced me to the rewards of scholarship. To all of those named and unnamed who contributed time, effort, and expertise to the realization of this exhibition and catalogue, I offer my heartfelt thanks. Robert D. Mowry Curator of Chinese Art, Arthur M. Sackler Museum,

and

Senior Lecturer on Chinese and Korean Art,

Department of Fine Arts, Harvard University

Preface

15

/\cknowledgments

The Art Institute of Chicago Stephen Little Elinor Pearlstein The Art Museum,

Princeton University,

Princeton, New Jersey

China Institute in America, New York Nancy Jervis

Arthur W. Asbury

Willow Hai Chang

The Asia Society, New York Vishakha N. Desai Denise Patry Leidy of San Francisco

EmilyJ. Sano Hanni Forester

of Art

J. Keith Wilson Dr. and Mrs. William L. Corbin Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Danziger Ronald Otsuka

Julia White

John Ayers The Baltimore Museum

The Cleveland Museum

Denver Art Museum

Richard Mellott

of Art

Frances Klapthor Dr. Robert Barron Patricia Berger Maggie Bickford Virginia Bower Mr. and Mrs. James E. Breece II Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Briefel The Brooklyn Museum Amy G. Poster Mr. and Mrs. Walter E. Brown Dawn

Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Alan M. Wachman

Cary Liu

Asian Art Museum

K.. ‘G, Gharis

Dr. and Mrs. Robert Dickes Robert H. Ellsworth

Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison Russell Panczenko

Leslie Blacksberg Pam Richardson

Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr. Robert M. Ferris [V Shi-yee Liu Fiedler Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago Bennett Bronson

Chuimei Ho

Carelli

17

Beth Forer and Cesar Cabral

The Nelson-Atkins Museum

Edith and Joel Frankel

City, Missouri Marc F. Wilson

Dr. and Mrs. Marvin L. Gordon Wai-kam Ho

Honolulu Academy of Arts Keita Itoh

of Art, Kansas

Xiaoneng Yang

Stacey L. Sherman The Newark Museum Valrae Reynolds Shirley Nye

Andrew Kahane

The Philadelphia Museum of Art Felice Fischer

Stella Kao Warren King Christopher Kuntze James J. Lally

Yan

Ge

Phoenix Art Museum

Claudia G. Brown

John Palmer Leeper

Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon Donald Jenkins

Candace Lewis

Franklin M.

Professor and Mrs. Chu-tsing Li

Khalil Razk

Mao Liu

Howard and Mary Ann Rogers

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere

George Kuwayama June Lee Ralph C. Marcove, M.D. DavidJ. Menke, M.D. John and Betty Menke The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York James C. Y. Watt Suzanne G. Valenstein Minneapolis Institute of Arts Robert D. Jacobsen

Preiser, M.D.

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto Patty Proctor Doris Dohrenwend Saint Louis Art Museum

Steven D. Owyoung San Antonio Museum

of Art

James Bradford Godfrey Denise and Andrew Saul Diane EL. Schater Irene Scheinman

Julia K. Murray

Peter W. Scheinman

Museum

Julie M. Seagraves and Richard Kimball

of Fine Arts, Boston

Tom Wu National Endowment for the Arts,

a Federal agency

18

Acknowledgments

Seattle Art Museum William Jay Rathbun Michael Knight

The Shinkeido Collection

Allen Wardwell

Mrs. C. C. Johnson Spink

Mr. and Mrs. Wango H. C. Weng

Sarah Stack

Mrs. Robert Lee Wolff

The Sze Hong Collection

Dorothy Wong

Mr. and Mrs. Janos Szekeres

Grace Chtian-ying Yen

University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor William Hennessey Marshall P. S. Wu

Eric J. Zetterquist

Acknowledgments

19

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Chronology

of Dynastic China

Shang

c. 17th century B.C.—1028 B.C.

Zhou Western Zhou Eastern Zhou Spring and Autumn period

1027-221 B.C.

1027—771 B.C. T7221 BC.

Qin

221-206 B.C.

Warring States period

Han

Western Han Wang Mang interregnum Eastern Han

W22-A51

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220-589

Sui

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Tang

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Five Dynasties period

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B.C.

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[o%2—-1227

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LITs—1244

Yuan

1279-1368

Ming

1368-1644

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reign

Jianwen reign Yongle reign

Hongxi reign

Xuande reign

Zhengtong reign Jingtai reign Tianshun reign

Qing

1368-1398

1399-1402

1403-1424

1425

1426-1435

1436-1449 1450-1457 1457-1464

Shunzhi reign Kangxi reign Yongzheng reign

1644-1661 1662-1722 ry2s=1795

Jiaqing reign

1796-1820

Quanlong reign

1736-1796

Chenghua reign Hongzhi reign Zhengde reign Jiajing reign Longgqing reign Wanli reign Taichang reign Tianqi reign Chongzhen reign

1465-1487 1488-1505 1506-1521 1333-1566 1S67-15 72 14731620 1620 L621—1627 1628-1644

1644-IQII

Daoguang reign Xianfeng reign Tongzhi reign Guangxu reign Xuantong reign

1821-1850 18S1—-I861 1862-1874 1875-1908 IQO9-I9QII

Zl

(Chinese

Brown-

and

Black-Crlazed (_

eramies:

/A\n Overview by Robert D. Mowry

INTRODUCTION

ove

T MADE

during the Han dynasty (206 B.c.—A.D. 220), high-fired brown- and black-glazed ceramics developed during the succeeding centuries, culminating in the wares of the Song (960-1279), Jin (1115-1234), and Yuan (1279-1368)

dynasties, their “Golden Age.” Even after they fell from favor in China in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), such ceramics continued to be treasured in Japan, where they are known as temmoku wares and are associated with the tea ceremony. Their influence extends to the present, as potters around the world seek inspiration in their exquisite shapes and glazes. This exhibition and catalogue introduce China’s celebrated dark-glazed ceramics and trace their evolution from the fifth to the fifteenth

century, focusing on wares from the Golden Age. Lacking specific symbolism, brown and black glazes evolved as potters attempted to expand the range of glaze colors beyond the well-known celadon, or sea green, which was the earliest high-fired glaze to develop.’ Different as they might seem, the celadon and dark glazes are closely akin, both relying on iron oxide as their principal coloring agent. In the proper kiln atmosphere, a pale, bluish green color— like that of window glass—appears when concentrations of iron oxide reach 0.8 percent. As the amount of iron oxide increases, the color deepens, with concentrations of one to three percent yielding celadon glazes. Additional iron oxide results in brown glazes; those with concentrations of five percent or more turn dark brown, appearing black to the naked eye when sufficiently thick. Silvery spots and rust-colored splashes appear when the glaze is saturated with iron oxide; in effect, the excess iron segregates itself from the glaze during firing, and then, during cooling, forms either a skin or discrete markings on the surface, depending on the extent of application. Because iron is present in prodigious quantities in the earth’s crust, and thus in the clays used to make ceramics, Chinese potters no doubt discovered the secrets of celadon manufacture with relative ease, once they began to experiment with intentionally applied, high-fired glazes in the Warring States (481-221 B.c.) and Han periods.” If that discovery came relatively quickly, their search for agents with which to expand the range of glaze colors proceeded slowly because few natural glaze colorants can withstand the temperatures in excess of 1150 degrees Celsius that are necessary to create high-fired stonewares. In fact, the use of copper and cobalt—the other two

23

elements used as coloring agents for high-fired glazes in traditional times—would not be mastered until the fourteenth century. All high-fired, colored glazes on wares made before the fourteenth century thus necessarily rely on compounds of iron for their color and are closely related. It should be emphasized that dark glazes made before the Qing dynasty (1644—1911)—including those examined in this study—are not truly black; they are, rather, dark chocolate brown, appearing black where thick. Such Song and Song-style glazes show their actual brown color under bright light. True black glazes evolved only in Qing times, when potters added cobalt and manganese to ironsaturated glazes. The Chinese taste for dark-glazed wares developed alongside the taste for lacquer. Despite the predominance of cinnabar lacquer in the Ming and Qing dynasties, black and black-coffee brown were the preferred colors in pre-Ming times. In the Tang (618-907) and Song periods, ceramics often took aesthetic inspiration from lacquer ware, adopting the colors and forms of this expensive material. The increased demand for dark-glazed ceramics in the Song also reflected changes in tea-drinking customs. The red tea consumed during the Tang, for example, was believed to look best in pale, bluish green bowls, so bowls of celadon-glazed Yue ware were preferred. By contrast, the whipped, white tea that became popular in the Song was thought to look its best in black-glazed bowls, so kilns in north and south alike increased their

production of such wares. Late in the Northern Song period (960-1127), tea from the Beryuan gardens, spring water from Huishan (near Wuxi), and black-glazed tea bowls from Jian’an came to be termed the “three excellences” (sanjue) by members of the court and intelligentsia. During the Tang dynasty, the Chinese regularly drank so-called brick tea, which they prepared by boiling a piece broken from a brick of dried tea in a pot of water.’ They sometimes added scallions, ginger, orange peel, jujubes, dogwood berries, and peppermint to the brew; those drinking the tea consumed not only the liquid, but the various other ingredients as well.4 The

1987 excavation of a cache of

gold and silver tea utensils from the pagoda of Famensi Temple in Fufeng, Shaanxi province, confirmed that tea drinking was an established practice in Buddhist monasteries and temples in Tang times;> enjoyed as a pleasant-tasting beverage, tea was prized as a mild stimulant that would assist the monks in staving off drowsiness during meditation. Perhaps because tea was introduced to Japan by monks who had studied in China, the customs and conventions associated with the drinking of tea developed in Buddhist temples and monasteries in Japan, at least in the Heian (794-1185) and Kamakura (1185-1333) periods. In China, by contrast, such customs and conventions

evolved in the secular realm rather than in religious circles. Composed in the mideighth century by the scholar Lu Yu, the Chajing, or Classic of Tea, not only offers a brief survey of the history and manufacture of tea, but describes the proper methods for brewing and drinking it and details the numerous utensils deemed essential for preparing and serving it.° The earliest work devoted entirely to tea, Lu’s three-part

24

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

treatise reflects both the enjoyment that people of Tang found in tea drinking and the seriousness with which they approached it; the treatise also lays the foundation for the virtual cult of tea that would culminate in the Northern Song and that would involve such leading intellectuals and statesmen as Cai Xiang (1012-1067) and Su Shi (Su Dongpo; 1037-1101), not to mention the Emperor Huizong (1082-1135; ©, TIGO=1725). The title of the exhibition, Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers,

derives from the names Chinese authors of the Song dynasty assigned to the various markings on dark-glazed wares. “Hare’s fur” refers to a black glaze delicately streaked with brown or silver; “tortoiseshell” describes a chocolate brown glaze suffused with amber or buff; and “partridge feather” denotes a pitch black glaze splashed with rust brown. Although brown- and black-glazed ceramics are popularly called temmoku wares in the West, the term 1s avoided in this exhibition and catalogue, both because it is ambiguous and because it is a Japanese term only infrequently used in China, the ceramics’ country of origin.” Used in Japan at least since the fifteenth century,” the term temmoku 1s sometimes applied only to Chinese Jian ware; 1n other cases, it 1s applied to all Song and Song-style dark-glazed wares made in China; in yet other cases, it is applied to all dark-glazed stonewares, whether made in China, Korea, Japan, or

even Southeast Asia. The term stresses the visual unity of the ceramics and might best be translated idiomatically as “Song and Song-style dark-glazed stonewares.” Although it is diagnostic in identifying a category of dark-glazed wares appropriate for the Japanese tea ceremony, the term does not distinguish differences among those wares— differences in body and glaze types that are critical in determining the various ceramics’ dates and kilns of manufacture. Such ceramics are known collectively as heiyouyao, or “dark-glazed wares,” in China, where individual pieces are traditionally identified by location of production. Since the results of archaeological investigations increasingly allow the kilns of manufacture to be pinpointed for individual pieces, precise identifications can now be used in place of the ambiguous terms of earlier eras.” BARLY

WARES:

FLAN

THROUGH

TANG

PERIODS

The earliest stonewares known to have been intentionally coated with highfiring, dark glazes were made during the Eastern Han period (25—220) at kilns in Shangyu, Jinxian, and Cixi counties in the Shaoxing-Ningbo area of northeastern Zhejiang province.” As descendants of the so-called proto-porcelain kilns of the Qin (221-206 B.c.) and Western Han (206 B.c.—A.D. 9) periods, the Eastern Han kilns in the Shaoxing-Ningbo area produced mainly celadons, but also made some dark-glazed

wares. Potters at those kilns typically left the lower portions of their vessels unglazed so that the melting glaze would not run to the foot during firing the kiln furniture; indeed, the otherwise unglazed lower portions runs, or tears, of glaze from above, justifying the potters’ caution. clay sometimes assumed a purplish brown skin in firing, as it had

and fuse the vessel to often show long The exposed body on the earlier

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

25

proto-porcelains. The potters who made the proto-porcelains typically brushed glaze on the upper portions of their pots; by contrast, potters at the Shaoxing-Ningbo area kilns applied glaze by immersing their vessels in the glaze slurry.'* In addition, potters at the Shaoxing-Ningbo kilns typically used finely ground, well-levigated clay for the bodies of their celadon wares, but used coarse clay for those of their dark-glazed ceramics, probably aware that the dark glaze would conceal the roughness of the body clay. The potters apparently already understood that success lay in harmoniously blending technical and aesthetic excellence with efficient means of production.’* The Shaoxing-Ningbo area kilns gave rise to the Yue kilns that won renown for their aristocratic celadons during the long period from the third through the tenth century. The Deging and Yuhang kilns, near Hangzhou in northern Zhejiang province, were the earliest in China to sustain production of high-fired stonewares with an even coating of medium- or dark brown glaze. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, they garnered a measure of fame for their “chicken-headed ewers” in Yuetype ware, some with celadon glaze but most with brown glaze (cat. no. 1). Like most ash-rich glazes, those from Deqing and Yuhang tend to be highly fluid and crystalline, sometimes resulting in an uneven coating that imparts a mottled appearance. By the Tang dynasty, most dark-glazed wares were produced in the north, in Henan, Hebei, and Shaanxi provinces. More stable—and thus more even—than before, the rich, lustrous glazes link Tang vessels to the best brown and black lacquer of the day; elegant new shapes—particularly the cuspidor (no. 7) and the short-spouted ewer (no. 6)—link them to the silver vessels popular at the time. The glazes generally are darker than those of the Six Dynasties, and they typically appear black where thick (no. §). In addition, the range of glaze hues is broader, some glazes appearing chocolate brown (nos. 8-11) and some boasting a russet skin (no. 2). Most Tang dark-glazed ceramics are undecorated, relying on tautness of form and beauty of glaze for aesthetic appeal, but a few incorporate molded designs (no. 2). Reflecting their Six-Dynasties origins, ceramics of the Tang display a taste for handles molded in the form of dragons (nos. 3, 6, 10) and for feet molded in the form of lions’ paws (no. 4). Most Tang ceramics have a solid foot rather than a distinct footring; their glazes usually stop well above the foot, leaving the body clay exposed on the lower portion of the vessel. Famed for its celadon wares during the Northern Song and Jin periods, the Huangpu kiln produced mainly dark-glazed wares during the Tang. Located near Tongchuan, in central Shaanxi province, not far to the north of Xi’an, the Huangpu

kiln created tea-dust glazes in addition to its well-known brown and black ones (nos. 6, 7). Opaque and semilustrous, the tea-dust glaze includes crystals that impart the speckled, even metallic, effect that is one of the pleasing, and defining, features of the glaze. The tea-dust glaze is a close relative of the dark brown glaze; 1n fact, it 1s a variant of that glaze, kiln temperature and firing time determining which hue emerges from the firing chamber. Most Tang- and Song-type dark glazes pass through a teadust phase as they fire; if underfired—that 1s, if the kiln temperature is not quite high enough or if the appropriate temperature 1s not maintained for a sufficient length of time—the glaze will mature tea-dust rather than black. The Chinese term chayemo,

26

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

“tea dust,” links the glaze’s color and speckled effect to the similar visual characteristics of dried, powdered, green tea. Perhaps inspired by multicolored silk textiles or by the three-color, leadglazed funerary wares of the day, stonewares with abstract splashes of glaze in a contrasting color enjoyed a vogue during the Tang. To meet the demand, potters at the Duandian kiln in Lushan county (in southwestern Henan province) made fine quality brown-glazed wares with sky blue splashes—a type of ware that was imitated at kilns in several nearby counties. Pieces from the Duandian kiln have thick, opaque, chocolate brown glazes, their bluish white suffusions of well-defined shape with crisp edges and sometimes with “tails” (nos. 8, 9). By contrast, pieces from the Huangdao kiln, in

Jia county, often have thinner, more translucent, brown glazes, and their suffusions tend to be streaked and irregularly shaped with fuzzy edges (nos. 10, 11).

THE

CLASSIC

WARES:

SONG,

JIN,

AND

YUAN

PERIODS

Archaeological investigations have confirmed that numerous kilns throughout China produced dark-glazed wares during the Song, Jin, and Yuan periods; the most influential during the Northern Song were the Ding, Yaozhou, and Jian kilns. Highly desirable at the time, their wares set the aesthetic and technical standards by which other wares were judged and thus came to serve as models for ceramics made at other kilns, including the Jizhou kilns in Jiangxi province and the many kilns in the Cizhou system that stretched across north China. Despite the wealth of archaeological data attesting to the production of dark-glazed ceramics during the Song, the only dark-glazed wares mentioned in the Song literary record are Jian tea bowls, which were praised by Tao Gu (903-970) in the tenth century, by Cai Xiang in the eleventh century, and by Emperor Huizong in the early twelfth century, to cite only the most famous.

DING

WARE

Collectors of the Ming and Qing dynasties ranked Ding ware among the “five ereat wares of the Song,” along with Jun, Ru, Guan, and Ge wares. Celebrated for their white wares, the Ding kilns also produced pieces with russet, dark brown, and

black glazes. Although they were not imperial kilns per se—that is, they were not operated by the government and did not produce ceramics exclusively for the imperial household—the Ding kilns nevertheless supplied substantial quantities of ceramic ware to the palace in the late tenth, eleventh, and early twelfth centuries. Produced at a number of small kilns in Quyang county (in western Hebei province), Ding ware is so named because Quyang county fell within the Dingzhou administrative district during the Song. Elegant forms derived from contemporaneous silver and lacquer typify the ware (nos. 12-13), as do thin walls that result in pieces of unusually light weight. The smooth, fine-grained bodies of Ding ceramics are pure

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

27

white; composed almost entirely of kaolin, the bodies are only slightly translucent, transmitting a warm orange light when they transmit light at all. Although white Ding ware is well documented in Song literature, the earliest written reference to dark-glazed Ding ware appears to be the mention by Cao Zhao in his Gegu yaolun, The Essential Criteria of Antiquities, of 1388: “There is [also] brown Ding, whose color is purplish brown, and there is black Ding, whose color is lacquer black; [both] have pure white bodies; [their] prices exceed those of white Ding.”'* In fact, dark Ding glazes range from black (no. 17) to dark brown (no. 19) and russet (nos. 12-16). The glaze of russet Ding pieces is not rust-colored through and through; in fact, the visible rust color is but a skin over a very dark brown glaze. Probably originally intended to be black, a few rare Ding vessels sport tea-dust glazes (no. 18).

Selected dark Ding vessels were finished with a wide band of metal around the rim (no. 14). From the late eleventh century onward, white Ding bowls were stacked upside down in their saggars, or ceramic firing containers, to increase kiln efficiency; because their mouth rims were wiped free of glaze to prevent them from fusing to the kiln furniture, the bowls were banded with metal after firing to conceal the unglazed rim. By contrast, most dark-glazed Ding vessels were fired right side up, their rims fully glazed; the metal bands were thus applied to set the bowls apart from the ordinary, rather than for the mere cosmetic effect of concealing an unsightly rim. Some Ding vessels have a segmented rim that suggests the form of an open blossom, the notches separating one petal from the next (nos. 13, 19). Although most dark Ding vessels are undecorated, a few incorporate abstract or representational designs that work effectively with the deeply colored glazes.'> In the eleventh century, pieces were occasionally adorned with overglaze floral designs in gold leaf (no. 15), a practice that might have been inspired by the parcel gilt designs on silver vessels or by the thin sheets of gold and silver that were inset in pingtuo lacquers during the Tang." Commenting on white Ding bowls with gold decoration, the late Song literatus Zhou Mi (1232-1298) remarked in his Zhiyatang zachao that “Garlic juice was used to prepare the gold, [which was then] painted on; after that, the bowls were placed in the kiln and fired again; [the gold] will never come off.” '’ Though his optimistic assessment that the gold would not come off does not hold true, Zhou’s comment anchors gold-embellished Ding pieces in the Song literary record, and correctly notes that they were fired a second time to fuse the gold to the glaze. In the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, dark-glazed Ding vessels were sometimes dotted with flecks (no. 16) or partridge-feather mottles; in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, a few brown-glazed bowls were molded with pictorial designs in thread relief (no. 19). YAOZHOU

WARE

Best known in the Northern Song period for their celadon-glazed stonewares, the Yaozhou kilns are located near Tongchuan, in central Shaanxi province;

they trace their origins to the Huangpu kiln, which in Tang times was celebrated for

28

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

its prodigious output of black- and tea-dust-glazed ceramics (nos. 6, 7). By the Northern Song, the Huangpu kilns had perfected a variety of celadon ware with carved floral decoration under a thick but transparent, lustrous glaze. The ware appealed to the aristocratic taste of the day and was apparently supplied to the palace as tribute in the late eleventh and early twelfth century; like the Ding kilns, however, the Yaozhou kilns were never classed as imperial kilns. Even after celadon wares became their mainstay, the Yaozhou kilns continued the production of both white and dark wares throughout the Northern Song and Jin periods. In fact, recent excavations have revealed that the Huangpu kilns produced russet-glazed stonewares in abundance, second in quantity only to the celadons; black-glazed wares trailed russet wares in quantity, as white wares trailed black wares. Though they differ in the clay used for their bodies, russet-glazed Yaozhou wares (no. 20) and russet-glazed Ding wares (nos. 12-16) were no doubt produced at the same time, and perhaps even for the same market. The two wares thus boast similar shapes, as they reflect similar influences from black and brown lacquer. Apart from subtle differences in shape and glaze color, the chief characteristic differentiating the two wares is the color of their clay bodies: Ding ware bodies are pure white and faintly translucent, while Yaozhou ware bodies are opaque and pale gray, the exposed body clay often with a buff-colored skin. The russet-skinned Yaozhou glaze is often of a slightly more reddish hue and it typically has a subtle metallic luster that is usually wholly lacking in the Ding glaze. The footrings of dark-glazed Yaozhou vessels are identical in shape and style to those of Yaozhou celadon wares. During the Northern Song, the Huangpu kilns also produced black-glazed bowls and dishes with russet stripes (nos. 21, 22). A slightly more pronounced reddish tinge and a metallic luster—apart from the more obvious silvery streaks of crystallized iron oxide—distinguish the russet markings on Yaozhou wares from those of darkglazed ceramics produced at other kilns. The reliance upon a variety of striped markings also distinguishes Yaozhou wares; other northern kilns typically feature abstract flecks and splashes or painted designs of blossoming plants or flying birds on their dark-glazed wares.

JIAN WARE The Jian kilns were active at Shuiji, near Jianyang, in northern Fujian province, from the late Tang through the Yuan. During the Tang and Five Dynasties (907-60) periods, they produced celadon wares in imitation of those made at the Yue kilns in northeastern Zhejiang province. By the Song, their period of greatest achievement, the kilns had come to specialize in the production of dark-glazed wares, to the exclusion of all others. Their repertory of vessel shapes had shrunk to include only tea bowls, which they made in three basic shapes—conical, trumpet-mouthed, and funnel-shaped. The kilns turned to the manufacture of gingbai-type porcelains with pale blue glazes in the Yuan dynasty; unable to compete successfully in the manufacture of decorated porcelain, they ceased production altogether after the Yuan.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

29

Classic Jian bowls have a coarse, slate gray body that usually fires purplish brown where exposed. They sport a dark brown glaze that appears jet black on some pieces (nos. 76-78) and bluish black on others (nos. 79, 80). The lower portions of such bowls are typically unglazed, but in some cases the glaze ran to the foot in long tears (no. 81). Iron-oxide-laden slips applied to the glaze surface before firing imparted abstract decorative patterns. A devotee of Fujianese tea and of Jian tea bowls, Emperor Huizong proclaimed those bowls with hare’s-fur markings (tuhao wen) the most desirable. Even the quintessential Northern Song literatus Su Shi once remarked on a hare’s-fur-streaked bowl: “Surprised, I suddenly saw the hare’s-fur markings (tumao ban) on my tea bow]; I ladled fine wine from my spring jar.” '® Such markings range from subtle to bold, from pale yellow (nos. 77, 78) to rust brown (nos. 79, 80), to silvery brown (nos. 81, 82) and even to silver (no. 83). Song literature includes various

names for the fur-like streaks; their meanings now obscured by time, the several names were doubtless used to differentiate the color and density of the markings. While their hare’s-fur streaked glazes commanded pride of place, the Jian kilns also produced black-glazed tea bowls with partridge-feather mottles (zhegu ban), as revealed both by archaeological investigations at the kiln sites '? and by mentions in such literary works as Tao Gu’s Qingyilu: “[Among] the tea bowls made in Min [Fujian] are ones decorated with partridge-feather mottles; connoisseurs of tea prize them.”*° The tenth-century date of Tao’s Qingyilu suggests that partridge-feather glazes—those black glazes dotted, flecked, or splashed with russet—may have originated at the Jian kilns and then spread to the north, where the Cizhou-type kilns produced them in quantity during the Northern Song and Jin. Similarly, the Jian kilns very likely invented oilspot glazes (no. 85), which also were widely imitated at Cizhou-type kilns during the Jin dynasty (nos. 43, 44, 46, 50). A few Jian tea bowls have abstract blossoms painted

in overglaze slip (no. 84); other Jian or Jian-type tea bowls sport designs painted in overglaze gold (no. 86). The Jian kilns initially produced humble wares for a local market; their tea bowls’ rise to prominence parallels the rise of Fujianese tea. Virtually unknown in Tang times, tea grown in Fujian had come to be considered the very finest by the Northern Song, thanks to the promotional efforts of Cai Xiang and other influential native sons. The best Fujianese tea was white-leafed; when dried, powdered, and whisked in a bowl with hot water, it produced a frothy, milk-white beverage termed whipped tea. Such white tea was thought to look its best in black-glazed bowls. As Fujianese tea-drinking customs developed and spread during the Northern Song, the Jian kilns’ classic, dark-glazed tea bowls gained renown throughout the nation. At least as early as the twelfth century, Japanese monks were beginning to carry Jian tea bowls back to Japan as mementos of their visits to China; by the thirteenth century, the Japanese were importing such bowls in substantial quantities. In his Chalu, a treatise on tea written by imperial command between

1049 and 1053, the Chinese scholar and

statesman Cai Xiang recorded the merits of Jian bowls: Tea is white, so black bowls are best. Tea bowls made in Fujian are deep; in color, they are bluish black with hare’s-fur markings. Such bowls are 30

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

thick-bodied; once warmed they retain their heat, so the tea does not cool too quickly. Tea bowls from other regions are either too thin or too purplish brown, so they are not as good as those from Fujian.*’ Because Jian tea bowls were prized at court for drinking tea, the kilns supplied tribute ware each year. Some rare bowls have stamped characters reading jinzhan, or “presentation tea bowl” on their shallow bases; only slightly less rare, others have incised characters reading gongyu, or “imperial tribute,” on their bases (no. 76). CIZHOU-=-TYPE

WARES

Stretching over an arc of several hundred miles in northern China, the Cizhou system, or family, included numerous independent kilns in Shandong, Hebei,

Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi provinces. Active from the late Tang through the end of the Yuan, and even into the Ming, the Cizhou kilns specialized in the production of stonewares with one or more underglaze slips and boldly incised, carved, or painted designs; they also garnered fame for their brown- and black-glazed stonewares. Pieces with clear glaze over slip decoration are generically termed “Cizhou wares”; pieces made at the same kilns but with brown or black glazes are usually distinguished as “Cizhou-type wares.” Potters at the various Cizhou kilns made humble wares, often taking inspiration from the aristocratic Ding and Yaozhou wares, and also from the celebrated Jian tea bowls. Untrammelled by the rarefied taste and conventions of the imperial court, Cizhou potters enjoyed a freedom of expression unknown to potters at kilns producing aristocratic wares; 1n a sense, the kilns became the great experimental laboratories of the day. The Cizhou kilns produced six categories of visually distinct but technically related dark-glazed ceramics: wares with monochrome glazes; wares with partridgefeather glazes; wares with oil-spot glazes; wares with painted decoration; wares with ribbed decoration; and wares with cut-glaze decoration. CIZHOU-TYPE

MONOCHROME-GLAZED

WARES

The earliest Cizhou-type dark-glazed wares are monochrome russet or black vessels from the tenth century. Many tenth- and eleventh-century Cizhou-type wares are virtually indistinguishable from their dark-glazed Ding models except for their greater weight and opaque gray stoneware bodies (nos. 24, 25, 29, 30). The aesthetic appeal of such undecorated pieces derives from their intriguing forms and deeply colored glazes, which are sometimes surprisingly lustrous, as well. Some Cizhou-type dark-glazed bowls (nos. 31, 32) have white rims that were

designed to imitate the silver bands occasionally affixed to dark-glazed Ding bowls (compare no. 14). In creating such bowls, potters immersed the piece in the dark glaze slurry and then immediately wiped the nm clean; the rim was later dipped in opaque white slip and then, following a period of drying, coated with clear glaze. The practice Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

31

of banding objects with metal to set them apart from the ordinary began at least as early as the Western Han and continued through the Six Dynasties and Tang periods, garnering renewed popularity in the Northern Song. The practice of simulating gold and silver bands on ceramic vessels also began at least as early as the Western Han, as indicated by the ochre and white bands that appear on the painted funerary earthenwares of the day. Though they attracted little interest after the fall of the Han, ceramics with bands imitating metal found renewed favor in the Northern Song, the revived interest sparked by the popularity of high-class ceramic wares with metal bands. CIZHOU-TYPE

WARES

PAR. R.UVGE«-PEATHER.

WITH GLAZES

Perhaps inspired by markings on Jian tea bowls, potters at the Cizhou kilns had begun to decorate their black-glazed wares with russet flecks or splashes by the eleventh century. Called zhegu ban, or “partridge-feather mottles’”—a term already in use by the tenth century—such markings were created by applying iron-oxide-bearing slip to the surface of the dark glaze before firing; in some cases the markings were splashed on the surface, but in others, they were touched on with a fingertip or brush. If the glaze and slip are iron-saturated, hematite (an oxide of iron) may crystallize on the surface of the russet markings during cooling, imparting a silvery, metallic sheen. A number of Cizhou kilns produced partridge-feather glazes during the Northern Song and Jin periods; the Guantai kilns, in southwestern Hebei province, are especially well-known for such glazes. Beginning as small flecks, partridge-feather markings quickly evolved into distinct, splash-like mottles. Early examples show an even distribution of the markings over the vessel surface (nos. 33, 34), but those from the late eleventh and early twelfth

centuries often display a balanced but asymmetrical arrangement (nos. 35, 36); bowls from the mid- and late twelfth century typically have large mottles on their interiors and russet-skinned glazes on their exteriors (nos. 37, 38).

CIZHOU-TYPE

WARES

WITH

OlL-sSPOT

GLAZES

Exploiting the tendency of excess iron oxide to crystallize on the glaze surface, Cizhou potters began to produce “oil-spot glazes” in the twelfth century. Basically black glazes with silvery markings of iron oxide, such glazes may have bold, circular dots of silver in a black matrix (nos. 43, 44, 46), or they may have a dense

pattern of brown flecks, each with a silver dot at its heart (no. 50). In many cases, the markings were massed to form large circular splashes set against a delicate haze of oil spots (nos. 44, 46). The Jin-period taste for such abstract but structured designs manifested itself not only in oil-spot bowls, but in russet-splashed bowls as well (nos. 42, 47, 48).

The name used in Song and Jin times for oil-spot glazes has been lost; Chinese authors now often call them youdiyou, or “oil-drop glazes,” employing the

32

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Chinese reading of the term yuteki that Japanese connoisseurs have used for such pieces at least since the early fifteenth century.** The so-called oil spots formed when iron compounds segregated themselves from the i1ron-saturated glaze during firing and crystallized on the surface during cooling. Oil-spot glazes may well have been invented at the Jian kilns in Fujian province (compare no. 85). In fact, Cizhou-type bowls with oil-spot glazes often show the influence of Jian ware in both shape (no. 44) and finish (nos. 43a—b, 44); the

latter is most evident in the coatings of dark slip applied to areas of exposed body clay in an attempt to mimic Jian ware’s signature body of slate gray stoneware. Other Cizhou-type bowls imitate the brown rims and hare’s-fur streaks of classic Jian tea bowls (no. 49).

During the late Northern Song, when Jian tea bowls were at the height of their popularity, connoisseurs of tea naturally used bowls made at the Jian kilns. After the fall of Northern Song in 1127 and the subsequent partitioning of China into Jin in the north and Southern Song (1127-1279) in the south, commerce between north and south was seriously curtailed. Inheritors of Northern Song culture, the citizens of the Jin state no doubt found their beloved Jian tea bowls unavailable on the market, since they were produced in the southern province of Fujian. Within that context, the various Cizhou kilns likely found a market for high quality imitations of Jian tea bowls in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries—a market that would have been unthinkable just a few decades earlier. The best-known Cizhou-type oil-spot glazes were produced at kilns near Huairen, in northern Shanxi province, and in Zibo, in central Shandong province. Examples from Huairen have bold silvery markings that rest on the surface of the black glaze; their unglazed lower portions are typically dressed with dark slip (nos. 43a—b, 44). Pieces from Zibo, by contrast, seldom have slip coatings over their exposed body clay, which typically displays a yellowish buff skin; more delicate than those on pieces from Huairen, their oil spots appear to be within the glaze, rather than on its surface (no. 46). WIAHOU-DYPE

WARES

WITH

PAINTED

DECORATION

In the twelfth century, potters at many Cizhou kilns began to decorate their clear-glazed vessels with underglaze designs painted in black slip on a white slip ground. Potters making dark-glazed wares soon followed suit, painting sprightly designs in russet slip on black- or tea-dust-glazed wares. Though similar in style, painted decoration on dark-glazed Cizhou-type wares is simpler than that on standard Cizhou wares, due to the difficulty of creating detailed scenes in dark slip on a dark glaze. The decorative scheme 1s typically limited to birds in flight (nos. 2-54) or blossoming plants (55, 56). The abstractly rendered birds are usually presented from two vantage points: the head is shown in profile, its short, pointed beak immediately recognizable; the body is shown from above, reduced to a fan-shaped array of feathers that radiate outward from the spiraling neck, with a large, comma-shaped brushstroke on either

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

33

side indicating the outstretched wings; the long, scrolling tail 1s shown partly from above, partly in profile. The painted decoration on dark-glazed vessels employs some of the most elegantly calligraphic brushwork to be found in the Chinese ceramic tradition. Standard Cizhou wares with painted decoration only appeared in the midtwelfth century; most dark-glazed vessels with painted decoration are thus believed to date to the late twelfth and the thirteenth centuries. Although painted decoration on dark-glazed wares persisted into the fourteenth century, representational designs gave way to abstract patterns of vertical stripes in that late phase of development (no. §8). Such easily created decorative schemes were less the result of aesthetic choice than of economic necessity. As Jingdezhen—that complex of kilns in northeastern Jiangxi province that produced the famous blue-and-white porcelain—began its relentless rise to preeminence in the fourteenth century, other kilns had to compete fiercely for market share. As each tried to produce quality goods at the lowest possible cost, the labor-intensive practices that had been employed in Northern Song and Jin—and that gave pots of those eras their characteristic sophistication—typically fell victim to new practices that promoted rapid production. CIZHOU-TYPE

WARES

WITH

RIBBED

DECORATION

Applied in imitation of the relief ribs on lacquer and silver, white ribs were first used on ceramics during the Tang dynasty, mainly to segment the interiors of bowls and other open-form vessels. They were applied sparingly to the exteriors of vessels as decoration in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and by the twelfth they had emerged as an important category of decoration in their own right. Virtually always used with dark glazes, such ribs both enliven and emphasize the forms of the pieces they ornament; in most cases they are evenly spaced (nos. $9, 62, 63), but in others,

groups of ribs alternate with undecorated surfaces, establishing geometric patterns (nos. 60, 64). In all cases, the ribs on Northern Song and Jin vessels are spaced just evenly enough to create a sense of rhythmic progression, but just irregularly enough to impart the sense of spontaneity that so readily distinguishes Song and Jin stonewares from the mechanically perfect porcelains of Ming and Qing. Mounting evidence suggests that most white-ribbed vessels were made in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In rare instances, the ribs are carved directly into the moist clay of the unglazed vessel (no. 59). In most cases, however, the ribs are “trailings” of white slip—probably the same white kaolinic slip used on standard Cizhou ware—that were extruded onto the surface of the vessel with something akin to a modern pastry bag or cake decorator. The whiteness of the slip contrasts with the light gray of the body clay. The ribs are triangular in section and they taper to a point at the lower end, the result of reduced pressure on the extruder during application. Dark-glazed stoneware vessels with ribbed decoration were made at numerous kilns in north China during the late Northern Song and Jin periods; in fact, archaeologists have recovered sherds and intact examples at kiln sites in Shandong, Hebei, and

34

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Henan provinces. Despite the quantity of ribbed vessels recovered in controlled excavations, the similarity of pieces produced at one site to those made at another hinders the attribution of specific pieces. At this point the evidence allows little more than the general grouping of pieces by region of manufacture. Ribs on vessels made in Shandong, Hebei, and Henan are trailed in similar slip, so they are all pure white. The ribs on examples from Shandong (no. 64) appear snow white both because the glaze that covers them is more transparent than that on pieces from Hebei and Henan, and because they rise higher in relief and thus shed much of their glaze in firing; through their thick coating of dark brown glaze, the low ribs on the Hebei and Henan pieces (nos. 61-63) appear pale yellow. Other differences concern the type of handles, the rib patterns, the height and shape of the neck, and the glazing of the interior and the lower portion of the exterior. CIZHOU-TYPE CUT=GLAZE

WARES

WITH

DECORATION

Beginning in the twelfth century, potters at a number of Cizhou kilns began to produce vessels with so-called cut-glaze decoration, which features dark-glazed designs set against a light-toned ground of unglazed stoneware. Incised outlines, parallel knife marks, and small flecks of glaze accidentally missed in shaving reveal that initially the pots were fully coated with glaze. In creating such pieces, the potters first covered the entire vessel with dark glaze; when the glaze had stabilized but was still moist, the potters incised the outlines of the decorative scheme and then shaved the glaze from the “background.” Once completely dry, the pot was fired. Cizhou-type vessels with cut-glaze decoration rose to prominence in the late Jin period and flourished in the Yuan. Both the aesthetics and the techniques of decoration of cut-glazed wares were influenced by standard Cizhou wares with so-called sgraffiato decoration—that is, decoration incised and carved in a thick layer of white slip applied over the body before glazing. The immediate models were those standard Cizhou wares with decoration worked in a combination of underglaze black and white slips. In such pieces, the vessel was covered all over with white slip, after which it was further coated all over with black slip; the outlines of the decorative scheme were then incised, after which the black slip was shaved from the background areas to reveal the undercoat of white. The technique results in a black design on a white eround under a layer of clear glaze. First appearing in the late eleventh century, Cizhou wares with decoration crafted in black and white slips were made throughout the twelfth century. Although it produced aesthetically pleasing results, the technique of two-slip decoration was laborious, involving two separate applications of slip, followed by the removal of portions of the upper, black layer while leaving the white layer below undisturbed; in addition, when the decoration was complete, the vessel still had to be

glazed. Simplifying the procedure considerably, the cut-glaze method not only offered the challenge of a new technique to develop and exploit, it increased efficiency of

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

35

production. From the economic point of view, it can be no coincidence that the cutglaze technique came into vogue in late Jin and Yuan times, when increasing competition from the rapidly expanding kilns at Jingdezhen demanded that all kilns simplify and streamline their production techniques in order to survive. With their dark designs and light grounds, cut-glazed wares may also reflect the northern kilns’ attempt to produce two-color wares that could compete in the marketplace with the Jingdezhen kilns’ newly popular blue-and-white porcelains.

Although Cizhou-type wares with cut-glaze decoration are traditionally said to have been produced in northern Shanxi province, few kilns specializing in their manufacture have been identified there. Recent excavations have revealed that some of the boldest cut-glaze wares were made at the Ciyaobao kilns in Lingwu county, Ningxia Huizu Autonomous Region (nos. 73, 74).

JIZHOU WARE The Jizhou kilns were located in central Jiangxi province, not far from Yonghe, a market town near Ji’an. Because the region was known as Jizhou in Five Dynasties and Song times, the humble wares made there have traditionally been called Jizhou ware. Perhaps established in the Tang, the Jizhou kilns were active through the Yuan, and perhaps into the Ming; they made their best-known wares during the Southern Song. If the Cizhou kilns were the most technically innovative during the Northern Song period, the Jizhou kilns succeeded them as the most technically creative during the Southern Song. In addition to producing northern-style white wares with molded or underglaze slip-painted designs, the Jizhou kilns introduced and pioneered new techniques of decoration that resulted in tortoiseshell glazes and in papercut, glazeresist, and naturalistic leaf designs. More than anything else, it is the use of a black-coftee brown glaze manipulated to achieve decorative effect that unites the dark-glazed wares from the Jizhou kilns. The Jizhou kilns invented the tortoiseshell glaze, a chocolate brown glaze with amber or buff splashes (87, 88, 90-92). Called daimei wen or daipi wen in Song literature,’ the names refer to the shell of the hawksbill, a warm-water sea turtle from

which the Chinese traditionally harvested the tortoiseshell used in making decorative items. The glaze seems to have been created by splashing wood- or bamboo ash, perhaps with an admixture of slip, on the surface of the dark glaze before firing; light-toned splashes formed in those areas of the glaze receiving the ash. It is possible that tortoiseshell glazes with transparent amber splashes (nos. 87, 88) may have developed before those with opaque buff splashes (nos. 91-92). The wood- or bamboo ash not only rendered transparent those areas of dark glaze to which it was applied, but robbed them of their color as well; in addition, the ash acted

as a flux and thus lowered the melting point of the glaze, so that the amber splashes have distinct glaze edges of their own. Unstably bonded to the stoneware body, the transparent amber splashes often fractured and flaked over time, leaving unglazed areas

36 = Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

within the brown glaze matrix. The potters may have added slip to the ash mixture, the slip stabilizing the splashes but rendering them buff and opaque. In some cases, the mixture of ash and slip was used to paint designs representing phoenixes (no. 95) or blossoming plum branches (no. 94) on the dark brown glaze, as pure ash was apparently used to paint designs in other cases (no. 89). The most distinctive Jizhou wares are those with so-called papercut decoration (nos. 96-101). Vessels with such decor were first coated inside and out with dark brown glaze, after which openwork stencils of cut paper were affixed to their interior walls; a paste containing wood- or bamboo ash, and probably a little slip, was splashed on the exterior to impart the tortoiseshell effect and then carefully sprinkled over the whole of the interior to create the variegated buff markings. The papercuts acted as a resist, preventing the areas they covered from receiving the paste; once the glaze had stabilized, the papercuts were removed to reveal the designs reserved 1n the primary glaze. The openwork designs recall those on dark Ding vessels with decoration in overglaze gold leaf (no. 15), suggesting the possibility of influence. If Jizhou potters sometimes drew aesthetic inspiration from the Ding kilns, they also occasionally borrowed shapes from the Jian kilns, including the classic tea-bowl form (no. 96). Jizhou wares with leaf decoration are the most celebrated (nos. 107, 108).

Such decoration was apparently created by affixing a leaf (or, in some cases, several leaves) to the interior of a bowl before immersing it in the standard dark brown glaze. In the heat of the kiln, the chemicals naturally present in the leaf reacted with the glaze, robbing it of its dark brown color and rendering it transparent. The chemical reactions were presumably akin to those that occurred in those Jizhou wares that relied upon ash in the creation of the decoration. In addition to tortoiseshell glazes and leaf and papercut decoration, potters at the Jizhou kilns created vessels with glaze-resist decoration (nos. 102-6). In making such pieces, the potters affixed openwork stencils of cut paper to the vessel and then immersed it in the standard dark brown glaze. Once the glaze had stabilized, the stencils were removed, leaving the reserved designs, after which details were sometimes painted using a brush laden with iron-bearing slip. Following a period of drying, the reserved motifs and their slip-painted details were covered with a thin coat of clear glaze (nos. 102, 103). Given their use of stencils to create resist decoration on bowls with papercut decoration, potters at the Jizhou kilns may have developed glaze-resist designs on their own. It is also possible that Jizhou potters modeled their glaze-resist designs on those Cizhou-type wares with cut-glaze decoration (nos. 66-75). Despite their superficial similarity, cut-glaze and glaze-resist decoration differ in important ways. First, in terms of technique, cut-glaze designs are created by fully coating the vessel with glaze, incising the outlines of the decorative motif, and then shaving the glaze from the background areas. Glaze-resist designs are created by affixing stencils to the surface of the unglazed vessel and then immersing the vessel in the glaze slurry, with the result that the covered area remains unglazed. Second, in cutglaze decorative schemes, the glazed design elements appear against an unglazed eround; in glaze-resist schemes, the unglazed design elements appear against a fully

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

37

glazed ground. Cizhou-type cut-glaze wares thus have dark designs set against a light eround, while Jizhou glaze-resist wares have off-white designs against a dark ground. Third, because the design elements are glazed on Cizhou-type cut-glaze wares, details are necessarily incised into the glaze; since the design elements are unglazed on Jizhou glaze-resist wares, such details are often slip-painted with a brush. Fourth, although they sometimes have an undercoat of white slip that is revealed when the glaze 1s shaved away, Cizhou-type cut-glaze wares never show a clear glaze over the shaved

areas; as their body clay is nearly white, Jizhou glaze-resist wares seldom, if ever, employ white slip, but those pieces with slip-painted details often display a thin coat of

clear glaze over the decorated areas. ONCLUSION

Most kilns that had produced dark-glazed stonewares in Song and Jin times either ceased production after the Yuan or turned to the manufacture of light-colored wares in imitation of the newly popular porcelains made at Jingdezhen. The old kilns fell victim not only to the success of the Jingdezhen kilns but to the new taste that arrived with the Ming, a taste that preferred porcelains with pictorial designs boldly painted in bright colors and vigorous brushwork. The new enthusiasm for the bold and colorful prompted the turn from brown and black lacquer to cinnabar lacquer, as it doubtless also sparked the demand for articles in brilliantly hued cloisonné enamel. In the final analysis, the Yuan dynasty proved a major watershed for all Chinese art— even painting saw the literati style supplant the naturalistic Song style, with expression of the artist’s ideas, feelings, and personality taking precedence over representation. Those few Cizhou-type kilns that continued to produce dark-glazed stonewares into the Ming adopted styles and motifs from blue-and-white porcelains made at Jingdezhen in an attempt to add a contemporary flavor to their wares (nos. 70-72, 112). In addition, they often simplified their decorative schemes—presumably to increase efficiency and thereby reduce costs—with some kilns decorating the “fronts” and “backs” of their vessels in strikingly different styles (no. 71). In assessing the rapid acceptance of Jingdezhen porcelains in the early Ming, it should be remembered that brown and black glazes originated as potters attempted to expand the range of glaze colors beyond the subtly hued celadon; dark-glazed wares thus gained initial acceptance not because clients requested them, but merely because they were the sole high-fired alternative to celadon-glazed wares. Until potters at Jingdezhen mastered the techniques of firing cobalt blue and copper red in the fourteenth century, high-fired glazes were limited in color to those that derive from iron compounds: the celadon wares and the related dark-glazed wares. Once potters at Jingdezhen perfected the technique of painting in overglaze polychrome enamels in the fifteenth century, their clients no doubt found the limited glaze palette of Song and Jin too austere and the dark-glazed wares, in particular, too somber. With their taste for the bright and colorful, Ming clients seem to have been only too happy to abandon the old for the new.

38

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Even so, the taste for Jian tea bowls had already begun to wane in the Southern Song, at least at court. Cheng Dachang (1123-1195) remarked in his Yanfan lu, for example, that when the Southern Song Emperor Xiaozong (1127-1194; r. 1162-1189) served tea, he seldom used Jian bowls, preferring white ones instead.** Steeped tea, prepared in a teapot by pouring hot water over whole, dried leaves, displaced whisked tea in the Ming. Clear and delicately colored, steeped tea was thought to look its best in porcelain cups during the early part of the dynasty; by mid-Ming, connoisseurs had discovered the unglazed cups and teapots of low-fired stoneware that were made at kilns near Yixing, in southern Jiangsu province, and that would become the hallmark of the later Chinese tea tradition.*> More than anything else, the kilns that had produced dark-glazed tea wares during the Song and Jin fell victim to changes in teadrinking customs. Despite its near disappearance in China, the custom of drinking whisked tea in dark-glazed bowls lives on, even today, in the Japanese tea ceremony. Espousing the later taste for brightly hued wares and selectively remembering only the subtly colored, aristocratic wares of the Song, connoisseurs of the Ming and Qing excluded brown- and black-glazed ceramics from their collections, much as they avoided mist-enshrouded, asymmetrically composed landscapes by Southern Song masters. Except for dark-glazed Ding wares, brown- and black-glazed ceramics were considered too humble to warrant the attention of serious collectors, precisely because they did not number among “the five great wares of Song.” Largely ignored in Ming and Qing China, dark-glazed wares sparked admiration in Japan, where they came to be associated with the tea ceremony and to serve as models for tea ceramics made at the Mino and Seto kilns. That traditional appreciation inspired Japanese scholars to undertake serious study of dark-glazed wares during the first half of the twentieth century. Chinese and Western scholars alike began to follow suit in mid-century, the wealth of archaeological data unearthed since 1949 contributing enormously to our current understanding of such wares. As increasing numbers of kiln sites are investigated and as scientific analyses group seemingly disparate pieces into related families, we will one day be able to pinpoint the date and place of manufacture of most, if not all, of these exquisite dark-glazed wares.

1 Celadons are called gingci in Chinese, ch’dngja in Korean, and seiji in Japanese; despite differences in pronunciation, all three names are written with the same two Chinese characters. The first syllable of the compound means “light bluish green,” and the second, “high-fired ceramic ware”; the term is correctly translated as “light bluish green-glazed stoneware” or “celadon-glazed stoneware.” Believing they are using a term more closely related to the East Asian one, a number of Western scholars have recently begun to translate gingci as “green-glazed ware”; such usage is to be lamented, as it refers neither to the body’s high-fired nature nor to the bluish component of the bluish green glaze. In fact, “green-glazed” is the proper translation of the Chinese liiyou, which refers to the lead-fluxed emerald green glaze of Han and Tang earthenwares made for funerary use. The mistaken translation of gingci as “green-glazed ware” has led some beginning students and novice collectors to confuse the celadon and lead-fluxed green-glaze traditions, mistakenly assuming that the former evolved from the latter. The old term “celadon,” if properly explained, remains the better translation, as it readily distinguishes the traditions.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

39

NN tr

“Intentionally glazed ceramics” refers to those wares to which glaze material was applied by design before firing; such wares stand in opposition to “accidentally glazed ceramics” or “ceramics with natural kiln gloss,” which include wares with natural ash glazes that formed fortuitously as ash from the fire fell on the ceramics at a critical point during firing.

Such bricks were made by pounding newly picked tea leaves into a paste that was then shaped into a brick and dried. Chang Lin-sheng [Zhang Linsheng], “Sung Chien Ware: A Suggestion for a Revised Dating in the Light of Knowledge of the Tea Drinking Contests of the Northern Sung,” National Palace Museum Bulletin, vol. 16, no. 6 (January—February 1982): 4; Zhang Linsheng, “Jian zhan yu Bei Song di

doucha” [Jian Tea Bowls and Tea Competitions in the Northern Song], Gugong jikan, vol. 13, no. 1

A

(1978): 85. For information on the Famensi pagoda find of gold, silver, and ceramic tea utensils, see Han Wei,

“Cong yincha fengshang kan Famensi dengdi chutu di Tangdai jinyin chaju” [A Look at the TangDynasty Gold and Silver Tea Utensils from Famensi and Related Sites on the Basis of Tea-Drinking Customs], Wenwu to (1988): 44-56; Sun Ji, “Famensi chutu wenwuzhong di chaju” [Tea Utensils Among the Artifacts Unearthed from the Famensi Temple Pagoda], in Su Bai, Ma Dezhi et al., ‘“Famensi ta digong chutu wenwu bitan” [A Discussion of the Artifacts Unearthed from the Undersround Treasury of the Famensi Temple Pagoda], Wenwu 10 (1988): 34-36; Shaanxi sheng Famensi kaogu dui [Famensi Temple Archaeological Team of Shaanxi Province], “Fufeng Famensi ta Tangdai digong fajue jianbao” [A Brief Report on the Excavation of the Tang-Period Underground Treasury

nN

from the Pagoda of Famensi Temple in Fufeng], Wenwu 10 (1988): I-25.

Lu Yu [Lu Yai], Chajing [Classic of Tea], in Chashi chadian [Standard Works on Tea and Its History], ed. Zhu Xiaoming and Toronto,

(Taipei,

1981); Lu Yui, The Classic of Tea, trans. Francis Ross Carpenter (Boston

1974).

Temmoku is the Japanese reading of two characters that the Chinese read as Tianmu. The name refers to Mt. Tianmu—Tianmushan, or “Mt. Eye of Heaven” —a mountain bridging northwestern Zhejiang province and southeastern Anhui province. During the Song dynasty, Japanese monks frequently traveled to Mt. Tianmu to study Buddhism at one or another of the many monasteries. There, the monks acquired dark-glazed tea bowls, which they carried with them on their return to Japan. Whether the Japanese believed the tea bowls were made at Mt. Tianmu or merely acquired there

remains unknown, but they gradually came to use the name of the mountain for the ceramics, calling them temmoku wares. In Japan, the name gradually lost its association with the Chinese mountain and came to be used primarily for Song and sumed that on Mt. Tianmu the Japanese but this assumption has been challenged “Zhongguo gu waixiao taoci 1987 nian

oOo

Symposium

Song-style dark-glazed ceramics. It has traditionally been asmonks were acquiring Jian ware bowls from Fujian province, in recent years. See Ye Wencheng and Zhang Zhongchun, xueshu taolunhui jiyao” [A Summary of the 1987 Scholarly

on Ancient Chinese Export Ceramics],

Wenwu

9 (1988): 93.

The term is used in Zenrin koka, a book written in Japan between 1394 and 1428. Koyama Fujio, Temmoku [Dark-Glazed Ceramics], Toji taikei [A Survey of Ceramics] series, vol. 38 (Tokyo, 1974),

‘Oo

p. 89.

Recognizing differences that distinguish dark-glazed wares made in northern China from Jian and other wares made in the south, Western scholars of an earlier generation proposed that the northern

wares be termed “Henan temmoku.” Apart from problems surrounding the use of the term temmoku,

recent archaeological investigations have revealed that dark-glazed wares were produced in numerous provinces besides Henan (even though many such wares were assuredly made there); those additional provinces include Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Anhui, among others. Although classic Jian ware was made at Shuiji, in Jianyang, Fujian province, Jian-type wares were made in Sichuan and Guangdong provinces, not to mention other locations in Fujian province. The similarity of wares made at numerous kilns spread over a wide area renders futile the use of a single place name as the designator for an entire category of ceramic ware, unless all the wares were indeed made at that site. Until archaeology permits the precise identification of all wares by their place of manufacture, such designators as “‘Jian-type ware” and “Cizhou-type ware” will remain useful, however. See Henry Trubner,

40

“Tz’u-chou and Honan Temmoku,”

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Artibus Asiae, vol. 15, no. 1/2 (1952):

151-62.

IO

Zhu Bogian and Lin Shimin, “Woguo heici di qiyuan ji qi yingxiang” [The Origins of Chinese Black-Glazed Stonewares and Their Influence], Kaogu 12 (1983): 1131.

LI

Ibid.

12

Ibid., p. 1133. Lnid., &, LU9as

14 Quoted in Zhongguo taoci bianji wetyuanhui [Chinese Ceramics Editorial Committee], Dingyao

[Ding Ware], Zhongguo taoci [Chinese Ceramics] series, vol. 9 (Shanghai, 1983), n.p. (Appendix 1,

Lidai wenxian zhulu). Also see Sir Percival David,

Chinese Connoisseurship: The Ko Ku

Yao Lun, trans.

and ed. Sir Percival David, with a facsimile of the 1388 text, p. 141; Chinese text, p. 306, nos. 39a—b (London, 1971). Ts

16

During the Northern Song period, most celadon wares and white Ding wares were adorned with incised or carved designs; such embellishment was inappropriate for dark wares, since their glazes were relatively opaque, so the potters had to invent new techniques of decoration.

See Robert D. Mowry, Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection (New York, 1981), p. 56, no. 1979.119; The Freer Gallery of Art, The Freer Gallery of Art, vol. 1: China (Tokyo, 1972), n.p., pl. 26; p. 155, no. 26; Clarence W. Kelley, Chinese Gold and Silver in American Collections: Tang Dynasty, A.D. 618-907, exh. cat., The Dayton Art Institute (Dayton, Ohio, 1984), pp.'G1-94, 116s, $9-OT.

I7

Quoted in Zhongguo taoci bianji weiyuanhui, Dingyao, n.p. (Appendix 1, Lidai wenxian zhulu).

18

Quoted in Feng Xianming, “Cong wenxian kan Tang Song yilai yincha fengshang ji taoci chaju di yanbian” [A Look at Tea-Drinking Customs and the Development of Ceramic Tea Utensils since Tang and Song Times on the Basis of Literary References], Wenwu 1 (1963): 10; and also in Ye Zhemin, ed., Zhongguo gutaoci kexue gianshuo [An Introduction to the Ceramic Science of Ancient China] (Beying, 1960), p. 52.

19

See Chadé shirydkan [Tea Ceremony Institute] and Fukken sho hakubutsukan [Fujian Provincial Museum], Karamono temmoku—Fukken sho kenyd shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten [Chinese Temmoku—Temmoku Wares Recovered from the Jian Kilns in Fujian Province and Temmoku Wares Preserved as Heirloom Pieces in Japan: A Special Exhibition], exh. cat., Tea Ceremony

20

2I

22

Institute (Kyoto,

1994), pp. 41; 64, no. 47; 66, no. 49.

Quoted in Feng, “Cong wenxian kan Tang Song yilai yincha fengshang ji taoci chaju di yanbian,” p. 10. Cai Xiang, Chalu [A Record of Tea], in Chashi chadian [Standard Works on Tea and Its History], ed. Zhu Xiaoming (Taipei, 1981), p. 90. Used to describe a black-glazed tea bow] with silvery spots, the term yuteki appears in a fifteenthcentury Japanese diary entitled Mansaijunko nikki. Quoted in Akanuma Taka, “Kenyo to temmoku” [Jian Ware and Temmoku] in Chad shirydkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, pp. 181-82.

23

Feng Xianming, An Zhimin, An Jinhuai, Zhu Bogian, and Wang Qingzheng, eds., Zhongguo taoci shi [A History of Chinese Ceramics] (Beijing, 1982), p. 279.

24

Zhang, “Jian zhan yu Bei Song di doucha,”’ p. 85.

25

For information on Yixing wares, see Robert D. Mowry, “Catalogue,” in The Chinese Scholar’s Studio: Artistic Life in the Late Ming Period, An Exhibition from the Shanghai Museum, eds. Chu-tsing Li and James C. Y. Watt, exh. cat., The Asia Society (New York,

1987), pp. 165-66, no. 35; Terese ‘Tse

Bartholomew, [-hsing Ware, exh. cat., China House Gallery, China Institute in America (New York, 1977); K. S. Lo, The Stonewares of Yixing from the Ming to the Present Day (Hong Kong, 1986).

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

41

FIGURE

I

Yuteki Temmoku Tea Bowl and Lacquer Cupstand Tea bowl: Chinese; Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide H.

6.8 cm;

Diam.

12.1

cm

Stand: Ming dynasty, 16th century Carved black, yellow, green, and cinnabar lacquers over wooden core H. 6.2 cm; Diam. 15.8 cm

The Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya

Defining Temmoku: Jian Ware Tea

Bowls Imported

into Japan

by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere

pass

TEA BOWLS, along with other Chinese brown- and black-glazed

ceramics, have a long and involved history in Japan. Not only were such Chinese

wares imported from the twelfth century onward, but they were copied from the fourteenth century onward at various kilns throughout Japan. The evolving history of importation, use, and appreciation of such wares reflects as much about domestic and international trends as it does about the society of the day. With Japanese archaeologists increasingly focusing on sites of the historical period, imported trade ceramics have begun to attract widespread attention. In particular, Chinese brown and black wares, generically called temmoku’ in Japanese (see fig. 1), are currently being reexamined in Japan. One of the results of this process was the important 1994 exhibition Karamono Temmoku [Chinese Temmoku],* which summarized current ideas on the subject and examined the latest archaeological evidence. Recent analyses of historical documents in light of newly uncovered archaeological data have not only exposed changing patterns in the Japanese use of tea—not to mention the use of Chinese ceramics as prestige goods—but have given additional insight into the range and production of Chinese brown and black wares for the Japanese export market. HISTORY

OF

TEA

USE

IN

MEDIEVAL

JAPAN

Tea drinking had begun in Japan by the Nara period (710-784) and has continued through multiple permutations to the present day. The many active schools of tea have sparked intensive research into the history of tea drinking. Much of that research has focused on individual tea masters, from whom

the current schools

descend—a situation that has led to contrasting, even conflicting, opinions and histories. When these histories are compared with documentary sources and archaeological evidence, however, a fuller picture begins to emerge. This essay addresses the general development of tea drinking in Japan, focusing on the impact of changing customs on the bowls selected for serving tea. Two anthologies of poetry compiled by order of Emperor Saga (786-842; r. 809-823) record that tea was consumed at court functions during the Nara period.’ In 815 Emperor Saga even ordered various provinces to grow tea for presentation to

the court as tribute.* Though it did not establish tea drinking in Japan on a permanent basis, this act nevertheless reflects the court’s close connection with China, where the custom of tea drinking originated. Monks Kukai (774-835) and Saich6 (767-822)

43

traveled to China for study in 804, returning in 805 and 806, respectively. Monk Eichti (743-816), who spent thirty years in Chang’an (present-day Xi’an) —China’s capital during the Tang dynasty (618-907) —returned to Japan during Emperor Saga’s reign; tradition asserts that he served tea to the Emperor in the fourth month of 815 at the Temples Sdfuku-ji in Kyoto and Bonhaku-ji in Omi. The tea served was doubtless a variety of brick tea, or dancha. In making brick tea, the newly picked leaves were pounded into a paste that was molded into squares, or bricks, and then dried; the beverage was prepared by breaking a piece of dried tea from the brick and boiling it in water seasoned with salt, raw ginger, and sweet arrowroot.> Brick tea, and later steeped tea,° was consumed for its medicinal value at Buddhist temples and at religious and seasonal ceremonies at the court—1in Nara and subsequently in Kyoto, after the transfer of the capital in 794. At court, tea became an important part of the naorai, or banquets held at the end of royal ceremonies. During the early Heian period (794-1185), devotees of tea began to drink tea 1n an informal

private room while reciting poetry, a practice adopted from Tang China.’ The poetry recitations and tea drinking were often accompanied by music played on the koto, a large, recumbent, zitherlike instrument. The Kamakura period (1185-1333) saw the spread of tea drinking and the introduction of matcha, or whipped tea. In preparing matcha, a measured portion of dried, powdered tea was placed in a tea bowl which was then filled with hot water, and the mixture was whipped to a froth with a bamboo whisk. The drinking of matcha

tea 1s inextricably linked to brown- and black-glazed tea bowls imported from China (see cat. nos. 76-86). Legend ascribes the introduction of whipped tea and its associated customs to monk Eisai (1141-1215), who traveled to Song China twice between

1187 and 1191. Along with Zen teachings and matcha customs, Japanese also credit Eisai with the introduction of both tea bowls and tea seeds to Japan from China. Newly discovered documents reveal that the tencha, or steeped, manner of preparing tea reached Japan during the second half of the eleventh century, and that the matcha, or whipped, manner probably arrived during the twelfth century, well before Eisai’s departure for China. However, Eisai is still believed to have planted high-quality tea seeds at Hirado and other places in Hizen, and to have sent seeds to monk MyGe Sh6nin (1173— 1232) in Kyoto. My6e planted the seeds at Togano-o in the mountains north of Kyoto, an event that marks the beginning of widespread tea consumption in Japan.* Although tea was cultivated in many areas of the country by the end of the Kamakura period, including the eastern Kanto region, Togano-o tea was considered the very best. In the early thirteenth century, Eisai authored a two-volume work on tea, called Kissa yojo ki [On the Preservation of Health through Tea Drinking];? though it looks at tea from a botanical viewpoint, the book also discusses the preparation and drinking of tea. Clearly based on Chinese sources, the work derives much of its content from juan (chapter) 867 of the late tenth-century Chinese encyclopedia

Taiping yulan.’°

The main Zen Buddhist tea ritual during the Kamakura period was the obukucha, in which tea was offered to the Buddha, after which the worshippers drank

44

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

the tea. In the mid-thirteenth century the obukucha ritual began its transformation into the ochamori ritual; introduced at Saidai-ji Temple in Nara, the ochamori included

monks and townspeople alike, who drank the tea offered at the Chinju Hachimangu Shrine on the last day of the Buddhist ceremonies.'* A large tea bowl measuring up to forty centimeters in diameter was used for the ritual. The distinctive culture associated with tea began in Buddhist temples; soon, however, tea became available for secular consumption as well as for religious ceremonies. One of the earliest secular social gatherings convened to drink tea was the yotsugashira (four hosts). Presided over by four hosts, the gathering took place in a room filled with treasures and guests; the purpose of such gatherings lay more in the display —the spectacle, really—than in the consumption of tea. By the fourteenth century, tea had become a viable commercial product,

marketed with the dried whole tea leaves packed in special tea jars.'~ At the end of the Kamakura period, this accessibility to tea led, in turn, to the development of new

kinds of amusement involving tea; perhaps the most famous were the ftocha parties (tochakai) —tea-tasting gatherings modeled after the incense-identification contests that were popular during the same period. Tea contests had been popular in China during the Song dynasty; the Chinese emphasized the quality of the tea in their competitions, while the Japanese stressed the origin of the tea leaves in theirs. More than anything else, tocha contests focused on distinguishing Togano-o tea from that grown in other regions. Said to have been written by Tendai monk Jenne (1269-1350), Kissa orat [Letters on Tea Drinking] describes tea contests and the proper display of tea utensils on a stand (daisu).'’ The stand became an important element of tea, as it showcased the utensils used, particularly the tea bowl. The tea gathering described in Jenne’s document involved first drinking sake, or rice wine, then consuming cold noodles (somen) and tea, followed by various fruits and other foods for dessert. After a break and a change of rooms, the host’s son distributed sweets, and then a young boy would bring out temmoku bowls, hot water, and a tea whisk.'* Tocha parties gradually became more extravagant as their popularity spread through the upper class, which included not only the nobility, but also Buddhist monks and samurai. With the rise of formal rules (sare?) governing the drinking of tea in the midfourteenth century, especially in connection with Zen Buddhism, tocha-party contests gradually declined, although tea drinking as entertainment continued.'> The association of tea drinking with the Zen establishment ensured its spread among the warrior elite. The tea rules developed at this time echo the general rules of behavior regulating group life in Zen temples.'® These rules helped to forge an identity and a spirit of community amongst the adherents and contributed to the allure that Zen Buddhism held for the military elite. The three fundamental tea rules, which hold to this day, are discrimination (monosuki), behavior (furumai), and proper setting (chashitsu). Both the rules of conduct and the setting—the tea room, or chashitsu—give tea drinking a special meaning and set it apart from the routines of daily life. It was also during this period, the early Muromachi

(1336-1573), that the

term chanoyu, or tea ceremony, first appeared in the records, and that the kaisho, a

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

45

structure where people gather, first became an integral part of a warrior’s or shogun’s home. As general structures used for all kinds of entertainment, including tea and poetry, kaisho were often set in the garden.'’ The tea would be prepared nearby and brought into the structure by young male servants.'* The use of a special structure that segregated tea drinking from daily life was an important step in the development of the tea hut, which reached its ultimate form in the Momoyama period (1568-1615) with the tea master Sen Rikyi (1522-1591).

Courtiers who did not follow the tea rules had special tea gatherings of their own called junji chakai (tea gathering by turns) at places like Fushimi, 1n southern Kyoto. For the servants and other members of the lower classes there were also kitchen tea gatherings, in which crude unkyakucha tea was served.'? Perhaps the most original of the tea gatherings during the Muromachi period, however, were the summer bathing parties that were held in a large tub, with all guests bathing together

while drinking tea and sake.*°

By the end of the early Muromachi period, the rules for the classical tea ceremony were well-established, and a standard style of displaying the tea objects had evolved. The most important object—for both ceremony and display—was the temmoku tea bowl (preferably of Chinese Jian ware), which was followed in importance by the tea caddy. White porcelains and celadon-glazed stonewares were sometimes used in the ceremony, but not for the most important utensils. Chinese blue-andwhite porcelain was used only for the waste-water jar at this stage of development. Especially in the fifteenth century, the development of tea and its associated material culture was intimately tied to a phenomenon known as Karamono suki, or passion for things Chinese.*' This in turn was linked to the larger phenomenon of basara —excess and extravagance transcending social class—which reached its apogee in the Muromachi period. This had significant consequences not only for tea drinking, but, more importantly, for the use, collection, and display of tea utensils. Chinese tea bowls and jars were imported in increasing quantities to meet the ever growing Japanese

demand, as the desire for things Chinese made it obligatory for Japanese of rank to own certain types of Chinese ceramics. Although it would ultimately spark a conservative backlash in both tea culture and other areas, the phenomenon of basara, while it continued, ensured an ever expanding market for Chinese ceramics. The eighth shogun, Yoshimasa (1435-1490), employed experts to assist with his collection of Chinese art, considered the finest of its day in Japan.** Ndami (1397— 1471), one of Yoshimasa’s art advisers, prepared a catalogue of the shogunal collection. Entitled Kundaikan sayii choki, the catalogue comprises two parts: the first ranks Chinese painters according to three grades; the second offers instruction on the proper

display of art objects.*? While he often raises questions of authenticity in his discus-

sions of paintings, the author only classifies and describes the ceramics. Of perhaps greater importance to the study of ceramics is Kundaikan socho no ki, also written 1n the fifteenth century, and loosely based on the shogun’s catalogue, but which also describes Japanese attitudes toward Chinese ceramics. The work includes two sections on ceramics, the first concentrating on Chinese brown and black

46

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

wares (temmoku) and the second on Chinese guan, or official, ware.** The section on Chinese dark-glazed wares ranks them in descending order: yohen (“‘iridescent,” a reference to Jian bowls with colored splashes), yuteki (“oil spot,” Jian bowls with silvery splashes; see fig. 2), and Kensan (standard Jian ware). All from the Jian kilns in China’s Fujian province, these three types of tea bowls were highly regarded and thus deemed worthy of inclusion in the shogunal collection.*> The rankings continue in descending order, with ordinary usan temmoku (“black-glazed ware,” perhaps Jian, Jizhou, or Cizhou-type ware), haikatsugi temmoku (Jian ware with a gray, ash-colored glaze; see fig. 3), and taihi temmoku (“tortoiseshell ware,” almost certainly a reference to Jizhou ware; Compare cat. nos. 87, 92). The last three categories were considered humble,

and thus unworthy of representation 1n the shogunal collection. From humble origins, too, came a man who would prove to be most influential in the evolution of tea culture. Born in Nara, the son ofa blind monk, Murata

Juko (1422-1502) was raised by a powerful merchant family there. He apparently became friends with N6ami—who spent his last years at Hasedera Temple, in Nara, where he had taken refuge during the Onin War (1467-1477) —and

received from

Noami a copy of Kundaikan sayii choki. Juko did not own a yohen or yuteki bowl, but he did own a haikatsugi temmoku bow] (a Jian ware bowl now in the Seikadd Foundation Collection, Tokyo) with a subdued ash-gray glaze. Juk6 could not have afforded

FIGURE

2

Yuteki Temmoku Tea Bowl Chinese; Southern Song period, 12th—13th century

Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide H. 6.8 cm; Diam. 12.3 cm Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka [10633]

Registered National Treasure

Once in the possession of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, this tea bowl was passed down through Nishi-Hongan-ji Temple, Kyoto, to the Mitsui family, then to the Sakai family, and then to the daimyo [lord] of Wakasa province, finally reaching the Ataka Collection and entering the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

47

te

FIGURE

—

3

Haikatsugi Temmoku Tea Bowl Chinese; Southern Song period, 13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with ash glaze H.'6.8 em: Diami.. 13.3 tm The Tokugawa Art Museum,

Nagoya

In 1623 the Owari branch of the Tokugawa family received this bowl from the second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada.

the high price that a yodhen- or yuteki-style Jian tea bowl would have commanded, but

the much lower price of a haikatsugi-style Jian bowl—which was not traditionally valued by the tea elite—was probably within his reach (see fig. 3). Juk6 came to prominence in the world of tea following the Onin War, which displaced many of the old powerful families and led to the dispersal of their estates and the loss of their possessions, including their prized tea ceramics. As a member of the new elite, Juk6 forever changed the rules of the tea ceremony. According to his vision, Japanese-made brown-glazed tea bowls from the Seto kilns could substitute for Chinese Jian ware bowls; the number of utensils could be reduced; and the tea room

could be greatly simplified. Louise Cort points out that Murata Juk6’s austere aesthetic vision was a direct response to the destroyed collections and the limited availability of identical replacements: Juk6o’s aesthetic of tea affected all social classes. It offered consolation to noble houses and monasteries once accustomed to the finest Chinese goods alone. It also promised something else again to the growing circle of tea devotees among the merchant classes in Kyoto, Sakai and Nara.*° Juko was also responsible for the shift in style of room considered appropriate for serving tea—from the large audience rooms of grand buildings to smaller, austerely decorated rooms created especially for tea in quiet, secluded areas. Based on the new economic reality, this new style of tea appreciation focused on such intellectual accompaniments as linked poetry (renga) and tea diaries, rather than displays of material wealth.

48

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

The son of a wealthy tanner in Sakai, Takeno JO-6 (1502-1555) moved to

Kyoto in 1525 and became a disciple of Murata Juko. Following Juk6’s austere vision, Jo-6 performed the tea ceremony in an informal room; favoring even greater simplicity than Juko, however, he performed the ceremony without a daisu, or display stand, placing the tea utensils directly on the immaculate floor. Locally produced ceramics began to assume importance in the tea ceremony during the Muromachi period, due at least in part to Takeno J6-6’s influence. Though they had been produced and used from the late fourteenth century onward, tea bowls and other utensils made at kilns in Japan only began to gain acceptance and respect in the mid-sixteenth century, occasionally even becoming famous in their own right. New kilns took up production and old kilns, like those at Shigaraki, expanded production to meet the new demand. The first documented use of a Japanese-made tea bowl was in 1547.°’ The document refers to that Japanese bowl as Issei temmoku, a

term that was soon replaced by Wamono temmoku,** which distinguishes Japanese wares from Chinese wares, or Karamono temmoku. Although ostensible distinctions would remain, the general public’s ability to differentiate between Japanese and foreign was diminishing. Even the term Wamono would become more of an emotional statement of what should be Japanese than a practical term of identification. Once carefully guarded, the borders were beginning to crumble. When he returned to Sakai in 1540, Takeno J6-6 instructed Sen Rikyi (1522-1591) in tea-ceremony etiquette and procedures. As personal advisor and tea master to Oda Nobunaga (in 1575) and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (from 1582), Sen Rakyi became a pivotal figure in the tea ceremony of the Momoyama period, leading it far from its earlier fascination with Chinese goods. The display stand and the “famous objects” (meibutsu) exhibited thereon—the two symbols associated with the tea culture of the previous aristocracy —were consciously ignored by such practitioners of the new tea style as Takeno J6-6 and Sen Rikyi, who came from merchant backgrounds and did not—or were not in a position to—subscribe to their predecessors’ values. Sen Rikyi sharpened the focus of the new style of tea ceremony that had been taking shape under Murata Juko, Takeno J6-6, and others, molding it into what we know as the tea ceremony today, with its emphasis on the solitary (wabi), the mellowed (sabi), and the quiet (shibui). Although the emphasis of the tea ceremony had changed and new tastes prescribed a different style of ceramic ware, the famous Jian ware temmoku bowls were carefully preserved in the collections of temples and feudal lords (daimyo). As heirloom pieces, old Jian tea bowls took on an antiquarian significance. During the Edo period (1615-1868), members of the nobility treasured these Chinese wares, using them in a

ritualized tea ceremony—one wholly divorced from contemporaneous tea practices—that helped legitimize the practitioners through association with historically sanctioned objects.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

49

DOCUMENTARY AND

BLACK

EVIDENCE

WARES

OF

CHINESE

BROWN

IN JAPAN

The first Japanese record to mention Chinese brown and black ware, or Karamono temmoku, is a letter written by Kanazawa Teiken (1278-1333), a vassal of the H6j6 family, to his son Sadamasa in Kyoto. The exact date of the letter, called Kanazawa bunko monjo, remains uncertain.*? In the letter, Teiken urges his son to buy some Chinese ceramics in Kyoto, stating that Karamono (things Chinese) are not only popular with tea, but are sure to become ever more so. In a separate letter to monk Ken’a (active late 13th—early 14th century) at ShOmy6-ji Temple, in Kamakura, Teiken used the term Kensan (Jian ware) to describe a tea bowl, indicating that the Japanese elite of the day were aware of differences among Chinese dark-glazed ceramics, and that they were able to distinguish, at least on an elementary level, products from different kilns. An inventory taken in 1320 and revised in 1363-65 at a sub-temple of

Enkaku-ji Temple, in Kamakura, lists calligraphy, paintings, vases, tea bowls, porcelains, and temmoku among the institution’s possessions.*° In a separate temmoku category, the inventory differentiates various types of temmoku, noting that yohen (“iridescent” Jian ware) and standard Jian ware (Kensan) are distinct in quality from the rest of the brown- and black-glazed wares. The record also states that the sub-temple gave a yohen temmoku bowl and stand to an official of the Kamakura government as a present,** indicating the high esteem in which these wares were held during the fourteenth century. Documents of the day also record the growing frequency and extravagance of the tocha tea parties (of the type described previously) during the early Muromachi period, as their popularity spread among upper-class monks and warriors. The Yasaka jinja kiroku, or Record of the Yasaka Shrine, notes that from midsummer to the end of

1343 there were fifty tea parties, roughly one every three days.**

The Okazari no ki [Record of Decorations], which describes works of art used to decorate the residences of the shogun and feudal lords, attests to the importance of high-quality Jian ware tea bowls to the elite during the mid-Muromachi period. In particular, the Dono gydko okazari no ki [Record of Decorations for the Emperor's Visit to the Shogun], written by Ndami, describes the appearance of the residence of sho-

oun Ashikaga Yoshinori (1394-1441) on a visit by the Emperor in 1437,°* mentioning,

for example, that a yuteki temmoku bowl was specially placed during the visit.** The Ashikaga collection was dispersed in the sixteenth century. During the seventeenth century, objects said to have been in the collection were given the supreme distinction of gyomotsu status, which made them especially treasured among tea masters; as such, they are often recorded in tea diaries.*° Compiled as a text for beginners in tea, the 1554 manuscript Chagu bitoshu [An Approach to Tea Utensils] makes the shift in tea aesthetics abundantly clear. The manual anticipates the Momoyama-period tea culture’s elimination of the elitism that had typified the tea culture of earlier periods, and with it, the obsession with Chinese ceramics. The text is considered one of the first to espouse the aesthetic notion of wabi tea utensils, a style promoted by Sen Rikyii. The term wabi refers to the sense of 50

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

beauty in things imperfect, in humble and unconventional objects. Characteristics of wabi are asymmetry, simplicity, and austerity.2° The publication and circulation of Chagu bitoshii heralded the arrival of a new era in the history of tea in Japan—an era that offered a new style, a new approach, a new aesthetic, and a new appeal.

ANCHABOLOGICAL AND

BLACK

WARE

EVIDENCE TEA

POR.

BOWLS

CHINESE

BROWN

IN JAPAN

The practice of designating specific objects as heirloom pieces (denseihin) and of passing them down from one generation to the next within families and temples was well-established in Japan as early as the seventeenth century. Assuming a meaning beyond function and aesthetics, objects so cherished acquire the patina and authority

of tradition. The lore surrounding heirloom pieces is often so rich that documentation of provenance becomes difficult; and of course, the earlier the item, the more richly

embellished the legend. The wealth of apocryphal stories, the relative paucity of early documents, and the tendency for only high-quality pieces to be preserved cloud any study of the Japanese importation and use of Chinese dark-glazed wares that relies solely on texts, documents, and heirloom pieces. Beautiful as they are, heirloom pieces tell only a fraction of the story. Fortunately, archaeology focusing on historical periods—called historic archaeology—has come into its own during the past fifteen years in Japan and is yielding new information at a furious pace. Controlled excavations of thirteenth- to nineteenth-century sites now outnumber excavations at prehistoric Jomon and Yayoi sites. More then 20,000 sites are excavated annually in Japan, and Buried Cultural Property centers have been established in every prefecture and in most large cities.*” As regional archaeology receives more support, and thus proceeds ever more rapidly, a clearer picture of ceramic usage in Japan is beginning to emerge. Imported into Japan for more than 1,200 years, Chinese ceramics have been excavated from a variety of sites: government buildings, castles, humble dwellings, vil-

lages and towns, port cities, tombs, and sutra mounds. Western Japan has yielded more archaeologically attested Chinese ceramics than eastern Japan, where such native ceramics as Ko Seto, Seto, and Mino predominate—with the notable exception of Kamakura, which was the seat of government during the Kamakura period, and thus had both wealth and people of sophistication who desired Chinese goods.3° The twelfth century witnessed a significant increase in the importation of Chinese ceramics, with Hakata (in present-day Fukuoka) as the general center of the trade. Although trade relations with China were not officially sanctioned then—due in part to the Mongol invasion, and subsequent domination, of China between 1279 and 1368—Chinese ceramics reached Japan in ever increasing numbers during the Kamakura period. In the early 1320s, a Chinese merchant ship bound for Japan, and possibly Okinawa, sank off the coast of present-day Sinan, in southwest Korea.?? Recovered from the ocean floor in the late 1970s, the ship’s vast cargo of ceramics speaks eloquently of Japanese demand for Chinese ceramics in the early fourteenth Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

51

century. As of 1982, at least 18,000 ceramics had been retrieved from the wreck, with

white porcelains and celadons from the Longquan kilns predominating. Black-glazed wares, however, were also represented by a large number of tea bowls, 229 of which had been recovered by 1979.

Examining Chinese dark-glazed wares excavated in Hakata, Morimoto Asako has focused her studies on bowl shapes, concluding that brown ware bowls were imported into Hakata, possibly as early as the late eleventh century.*° Fragments of dark-glazed bowls appear in numerous twelfth-century sites, clearly indicating that such bowls had been introduced into Japan long before Eisai’s two visits to China in the late twelfth century (see discussion above). The Hakata area boasts the largest number of excavated Chinese trade ceramics in Japan, with a single excavation site often yielding more than 35,000 Chinese ceramic sherds.** Morimoto categorizes the shapes of Chinese dark-glazed wares into nine chronological stages. The first four stages, which extend into the early thirteenth century, include Jian ware or Jian-influenced Chinese bowls. Her studies reveal that bowls of exaggerated shape became popular in the mid-thirteenth century, and that the most representative bowl shape from the mid-fourteenth century onward was of a type also made at the Seto and Mino kilns.** Superficially similar, thanks to identical function, twelfth- and fifteenth-century tea bowls actually differ significantly in shape and style, as careful examination quickly reveals. Archaeology thus also yields clues that point to an evolving taste in Japan. JAPANESE THE

COUNTERPAR SS:

DOMESTICATION

OF

[LAN

WARE

Near present-day Nagoya, first the Seto kilns, and then the Mino kilns, began to produce native Japanese imitations of Jian ware in the second half of the fourteenth century, even as Jian ware tea bowls continued to be imported from China. The potters at the kilns clearly intended to garner for themselves at least a portion of the lucrative trade in tea wares that had been the exclusive province of the Chinese; fortunately, from the Japanese potters’ point of view, tea-ceremony taste came to favor the products of native kilns over time. In Kamakura-period records and illustrated scrolls—such as the Boki-e kotoba emaki, a handscroll created between

1351 and 1360,

which illustrates the legends of monk Kakunyo, and which depicts numerous brownglazed wares—it is virtually impossible to distinguish Chinese wares from Japanese.*? Illustrations in the Boki-e kotoba emaki also reveal that dark-glazed tea bowls, whether Chinese or Japanese, stood as symbols of wealthy households. Japanese copies closely mimicked their Chinese prototypes at first, capturing the shape if not always the color. Although some Chinese ceramics inspired imitations immediately upon arrival in Japan, others were not copied at all; yet others were only copied after a prolonged delay. Seto production thus mirrored Japanese taste, which, even in relatively early times, showed subtle differences from taste in contemporary China.

52.

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

The kilns in the Seto and Mino areas were the only Japanese kilns that produced intentionally glazed ceramics from the late twelfth through the late sixteenth century.** Despite a nationwide distribution system from the thirteenth century onward, the kilns seem to have supplied their wares mainly to eastern Japan until the fifteenth century. From the twelfth to the early sixteenth century, production at the Seto and Mino kilns relied on fine-grained, off-white body clay, an applied glaze rich in 1ron oxides, shapes derived from Chinese models, and single-chamber kilns with a

flame-dividing pillar (the kilns known as anagama kilns).* Called Ko Seto, or Old Seto, twelfth-century wares made at the Seto kilns were largely derivative, imitating ceramics produced in other areas: a variety of jars, bottles, mortars, bowls, and dishes, all unglazed. As a period of consolidation, the thir-

teenth century saw the introduction of both intentional glazing and new shapes, most of which appear to have been ceremonial: jars, flasks, ewers, incense boxes, and tea bowls with incised, stamped, and appliqué designs under ash and iron-rich glazes. By the second half of the fourteenth century, Seto potters had introduced new utilitarian wares for kitchen and table, and they had greatly expanded the production of tea bowls; the ever tighter grip of mass production reduced decoration to a minimum, however. The main products of the Seto kilns through the early sixteenth century were tea bowls, including Wamono temmoku (see fig. 4), which were coated with

either an ash or an iron-rich glaze; the early fifteenth century represented their

“Golden Age.”*°

New kiln technology brought change in the styles of tea bowls and other wares made at the Seto kilns in the early sixteenth century. Called dgama, the new

FIGURE

4

Seto Temmoku Tea Bowl Japanese; Momoyama period, early 16th century Mino ware, Seto type: gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings 1n iron oxide H. 727 em: Dim.

27.2 cn

Peggy and Dick Danziger Collection [80.20]

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

53

FIGURE

§

Seto Temmoku Tea Bowl Japanese; Edo period, late 16th century

Mino ware, Seto type: gray stoneware with ash glaze he

36cm

Dem,

£i.4-cimi

Kyoto Archaeological Research Institute

kilns included two chambers: a chamber with a flame-dividing pillar and a second chamber that was stepped. The arrangement produced higher temperatures and more stable firing conditions than those of earlier kilns, thus permitting both the efficient

production of fine glazes and the attainment of consistent results.*’

New interpretations of traditional vessel shapes appeared in the second half of the sixteenth century, including tea bowls, most of which were still inspired by Chinese models, but which exhibit considerable freedom in translation (see fig. 5, which represents a Momoyama interpretation of a haikatsugi Jian bowl, a type that was produced only from the mid-sixteenth century onward). Tea wares of native Japanese design began to appear in the 1580s, especially among Shino ware ceramics made at the Mino kilns. Considered as a whole, production at the Seto and Mino kilns reflects the change from a pure Chinese aesthetic to a native Japanese taste that prized unusual, even bizarre shapes. Mass production of tea wares in Japan also reflects the demand for, and probably the lower price of, native wares. These findings accord with the first mention of Japanese tea bowls in the literary record, which, as noted above, dates to the mid-sixteenth century. DEFINING

TEMMOKU

Because it is a generic term referring to dark-glazed wares from many different kilns, Japanese as well as Chinese, the term temmoku is too ambiguous for defining categories of Chinese black- and brown-glazed wares; it 1s, however, a diagnostic term

54

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

for a very real category of ceramics used in Japan for the culture associated with tea drinking. Recent exhibitions, conferences, and publications have revised and enhanced our understanding of the evolution of Japanese importation and use of Chinese ceramics. The revision began in 1975 with a groundbreaking exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum entitled Nihon shutsudo no Chiigoku toji (Chinese Ceramics Excavated in Japan), and continued in 1979 with an exhibition called Temmoku at the Tokugawa Museum in Nagoya. A conference in Shimane prefecture, also in 1979, led to the founding of the Japanese Trade Ceramic Society [Nihon boeki toji kenkytikai] and the inauguration of its Journal. Organized by the Tea Ceremony Institute [Chad6 shiryOkan] and the Fujian Provincial Museum,

the 1994 exhibition of Karamono

Temmoku brought bowls and sherds recovered from the Jian kilns to Japan, and juxta-

posed them with heirloom pieces in Japanese collections. This recent study, in concert with expanding archaeological and documentary records, has given a new and broader meaning to the term temmoku than it has historically carried. Karamono temmoku reached Japan in the twelfth century and continued to be imported through the fifteenth. Such Chinese wares were copied in Japan, first at the Seto and Mino kilns, then at other stoneware-producing kilns, and then even at the porcelain kilns in Hizen in the mid-seventeenth century. Temmoku wares were traditionally categorized according to type, and assigned to sub-categories depending on size, color, and markings, but the relative standing of those categories could change over time, as tastes and aesthetic preferences changed. Certain categories — haikatsugi temmoku (light ash-gray Jian ware), for example—were always ranked separately and, in the fifteenth century, were assigned a very low position in the hierarchy of Chinese dark-glazed wares; in the sixteenth century, by contrast, when aesthetic notions were transformed, haikatsugi temmoku received the highest ranking, making it worthy of inclusion in the Tokugawa shogunal collection (see fig. 3). The change in the acceptance of Chinese dark-glazed wares was a direct result of the changing economic reality, the supply of high-quality Chinese ceramics, and the social backgrounds of the tea ceremony participants. The turn away from classic Jian ware tea bowls to more individualized examples that embodied the personal taste of a master reflected a new aesthetic vision among devotees of the tea ceremony. From the Ashikaga shogun’s system of ranking works of art in his collection, through Murata Juk6’s aesthetic of cold beauty —still favoring Chinese goods—to Takeno J6-6’s rejection of things Chinese, and finally to Sen Rikyi’s individually ordered and enclosed world, there is the transformation of a commodity into an independent style—one that can be called truly Japanese.

1 The Japanese term temmoku is a generic term for Chinese or Japanese brown- and black-glazed stoneware tea bowls. Karamono temmoku refers to Chinese wares and Wamono temmoku to the related Japanese wares. The term temmoku derives from the name of Tianmushan (Mt. Eye of Heaven) in China’s Zhejiang province, where Japanese monks often traveled to study Buddhism during the Song dynasty. The monks carried many Chinese dark-glazed tea bowls back to Japan with them as souvenirs; it was

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

55

N

doubtless assumed in Japan that the bowls had been made at Mt. Tianmu, so they were called temmoku bowls, temmoku being the Japanese pronunciation of Tianmu. Later, the name temmoku took on a specialized meaning of its own, completely divorced from the Chinese mountain.

The full title of the exhibition was Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho Kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten [Chinese Temmoku—Temmoku Wares Recovered from the Jian Kilns in Fujian Province and Temmoku Wares Preserved as Heirloom Pieces in Japan: A Special Exhibition]; organized jointly by the Chad6 shiryOkan [Tea Ceremony Institute] and the Fukken sho hakubutsukan [Fujian Provincial Museum], it was held in Kyoto in October 1994. The two compilations are Ryon shii and Bunka shiirei shii; quoted in Hayashiya Tatsusaburo, Nakamura Masao, and Hayashtya Seizo, Japanese Arts and the Tea Ceremony (New York, 1974), p.1I.

LA

Murai Yasuhiko, “The Development of Chanoyu: Before Rukyi,” in Tea in Japan: Essays on the History of Chanoyu, eds. Paul Varley and Kumakura Isao (Honolulu, 1989), p. s. [Bidx He Brick tea is called dancha in Japanese; steeped tea is termed tencha; and whipped tea is named matcha. Tsutsui Koichi, “Chaho no inyu to sono tenkai” [The Introduction and Development of Tea Customs], in Chado shiryOkan [Tea Ceremony Institute] and Fukken sho hakubutsukan [Fujian Provincial Museum], Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho Kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten [Chinese Temmoku—Temmoku Wares Recovered from the Jian Kilns in Fujian Province and Temmoku Wares Preserved as Heirloom Pieces in Japan: A Special Exhibition], exh. cat., Tea Ceremony Institute (Kyoto, 1994), p. 170. Ibid., p. 171. The first volume was completed in 1211, the second in 1214; both original volumes are lost, but their contents are preserved in copies, the oldest of which is in Jufuku-ji Temple, Kamakura. Murai, “The Development of Chanoyu: Before Rikyi,” p. 8. Ibid., p. 9. 2

Louise Cort, Shigaraki: A Potter’s Valley (New York,

1981), p. 105.

The custom of using a daisu, or display stand, is said to have originated with the Rinzai Zen priest Soseki (1276-1351). The traditional daisu has a rectangular top and a matching base board, the two

connected by poles at the four corners. The tea caddy and bowl are arranged on the top, while the

water jar, kettle, and waste-water bowl for tea dregs are placed below.

14

Tsutsui, “Chah6

no inyu to sono tenkai,” p. 173.

Murai, “The Development of Chanoyu: Before Rikyi,” p. 18. 16

These rules of conduct in Zen temples are called shingi.

17

The poetry connected with such tea parties was in the form of waka and renga (linked verse).

18

These servants were called chabozu.

I9

These kitchen tea gatherings were called daidokoro chakai.

20

Summer bathing parties were called rinkan chanoyu.

2I

22

Karamono is a general term for Chinese goods; Kara literally means “Tang” [China], while mono means “things” or “goods”; suki denotes “desire, passion, or taste.” The compound thus means “passion for Chinese goods.” The position of art adviser to the Ashikaga shoguns was called doboshi. Although the original no longer exists, the catalogue’s contents are preserved in numerous copies, the oldest of which dates to 1566 and is preserved in Kofuku-ji Temple, Nara. The Kundaikan socho no ki is divided into three parts, with the first part focusing on Chinese painters, the second on the display of objects, and the third on ceramics and lacquer. The work exists in several

56

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

26

27

—

N WN

versions, the oldest extant one of which dates to 1476. Hasebe Gakuji, “Chinese Ceramics Historically Passed Down through the Ages in Japan,” in The International Symposium on Chinese Ceramics, ed. Henry Trubner (Seattle, 1977), p. 20. Only three examples of yohen temmoku are currently known, all of which are in Japan: one (called Inaba temmoku) in the Seikadd Foundation Museum, Tokyo; another in the Fujita Museum, Osaka; and the third in the Ryik6-in, a sub-temple of Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto. Only ten first-quality yuteki temmoku bowls are known in Japan today. Cort, Shigaraki: A Potter’s Valley, p. 110. Hiroko Nishida, One Hundred Tea Bowls from the Nezu Collection (Tokyo, 1994), p. vi; Its Yoshiaki, “Wamono temmoku” [Japanese Temmoku], in Chad6 shirydkan and Fukken sh6d hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho Kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, p. 226. 28

Wamono 1s a general term for Japanese goods; Wa refers to Japan, while mono means “things” or “goods.” The term is often used to distinguish Japanese goods from Chinese goods, or Karamono. See note 21 above.

29

Akanuma Taka, “Kensan to temmoku” [Jian Ware and Temmokul], in Chadé shirydkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken shd Kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, p. 178.

30

The inventory was conducted of the possessions of a sub-temple called Butsunichi-an; hence, the inventory record is entitled Butsunichi-an kumotsu mokuroku [The Inventory Records of Butsunichi-an]. Akanuma, “Kensan to temmoku,” p. 179. Tsutsui, “Chaho no inyu to sono tenkai,” p. 175. The record is preserved in the Tokugawa Reimei-kai, in Nagoya. Hasebe, “Chinese Ceramics Historically Passed Down through the Ages in Japan,” p. 20. Objects thought in the seventeenth century to have been formerly in the Ashikaga collection are given the status of gyomotsu [“honorable objects”]. Objects from the Tokugawa collection were known by the different, but also honorific title gomotsu. Both gyo and go mean “honorable”; motsu means “object.” Yoshiaki Shimizu, “A Chinese Album Leaf from the Former Ashikaga Collection in the Freer Gallery of Art,” Archives of Asian Art 37 (1984): 101.

36

The character for wabi literally means “insufficient.”

a7

Buried Cultural Property centers are called Maizo bunka senta in Japanese.

38

Tezuka Naoki, “Kamakura temmoku chawan” [Brown and Black Ware Tea Bowls Excavated at Kamakura], in Chad6 shiryOkan and Fukken sh6 hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku Fukken shod Kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, p. 217.

39

As indicated by dates on bills of lading and on tags attached to some of the numerous coins on board, the ship appears to have sailed in the early 1320s. Youn Moo-byong, “Recovery of Seabed Relics at Sinan and Its Results from the Viewpoint of Underwater Archaeology,” in Shin’an kaitei hikiage bunbutsu [Documents Concerning the Excavation of the Sunken Sinan Ship], ed. Choi Sun’u (Tokyo, ’

1983), p. 82.

AO Morimoto Asako, “Hakata isekigun shutsudo” [Excavation of Sites in Hakata County], in Chad6 shiryOkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho Kenyé shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, pp. 194-200. Kamei Meitoku, “Nihon ni okeru b6ecki toji kenkyi no hOhGron” [A Method for Studying Trade Ceramics Imported into Japan], in Chado shiryOkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho Kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, p. 158. 42 Morimoto Asako has discovered that her findings do not, in some respects, tally with the results of excavations and other archaeological surveys conducted at the Jian kilns in China’s Fujian province.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

57

Perhaps some of the tea bowls she studied are not actually Jian ware, but Jian-influenced ware that came from kilns that have yet to be identified and investigated. Future studies are required to amplify the record in this regard. 43

Noba Yoshiko, “Boki-e kotoba no tojiki” [Ceramics Portrayed in the Boki-e Scrolls], Annual Bulletin of the Nagoya City Museum 13 (1990): 24-44.

44 Intentionally glazed ceramics, as opposed to those which were accidentally glazed; the latter include wares with natural ash glazes that formed fortuitously as ash from the fire fell on the ceramics at a critical point in the firing process. 45 R.F.J. Faulkner, Seto and Mino Kiln Sites—An Archaeological Survey of the Japanese Medieval Tradition and Its Early Transformation, unpublished doctoral dissertation submitted to Bodleian College, Oxford University, in 1987, pp. I-3. 46

Ibid., pp. 1-7.

47 Ito, “Wamono temmoku,” p. 223.

58

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

(

himese

brown

ate

Black

of the Song Dynasty:

tlazed

Technical

(

eeomnfes

Considerations

by Eugene Farrell

LIN DRA IN

Over THE LAST DECADE the Harvard University Art Museums’ Center for Conservation and Technical Studies (now the Straus Conservation Center), in collaboration with the Museums’ Department of Asian Art, has examined, analyzed, and characterized several Song-dynasty dark-glazed bowls, bottles, and sherds in the permanent collection. Most of this technical work was done by interns from the Conservation Center’s Objects Laboratory under the direction of the author, Robert D. Mowry, and the Object Conservators. Beginning in 1987 Eva Sander studied Northern Song-period dark-glazed stoneware bowls, analyzing both bodies and glazes." Valentine Talland studied Song-dynasty Jian bowls and their Japanese imitations in 1988, focusing on body composition; she also analyzed the bodies and glazes of several dark-glazed sherds from bowls made at the Jian kilns.* In 1989, Carol Warner studied selected brown- and black-glazed wares of the Northern Song and Jin periods,’ and in 1990 Hope Gumprecht researched the method of resist decoration on Southern Songperiod Jizhou ware.* Also in 1990, Harvard graduate student Earl S. Tai successfully analyzed and interpreted an obscured image on the inside of a russet-glazed bow]; in addition, he demonstrated by chemical analysis and hardness tests that the bowl, whose identification on strictly visual considerations had been problematic, is in fact

an example of russet Ding ware.°

The methods of analysis used to study these wares were dictated by the limited number of ceramic objects available, the small sample size in each case, the lack of documented sherds from which to remove large samples for comparison, and the analytical equipment at hand. The methods used for examination were visual inspection, binocular microscopy, ultraviolet light, IR- (infrared) vidicon, X-radiography, and Mohs’ hardness tests using a pencil hardness set. The analytical methods included polarizing microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, quantitative electron-beam microprobe analysis, and photoelectron spectroscopy. WLANUPAC TURING

TECHNIQUES

Song-dynasty (960-1279) wares have a distinctive aesthetic derived from the interplay of design and highly refined technology, perfected over time by painstaking

59

observation and experimentation. The pieces are physically and chemically complex objects consisting of three distinct zones: the sintered body, a transition interface, and the glaze. The bodies are high alumina-silica ceramic wares made from local clays with carefully selected additives that are sintered into a stable support for the glaze. The glaze is similarly composed, but with less alumina and more flux, which lowers the melting temperature to produce the glassy phase. The glaze itself is glass that, because of the short firing time, retains many natural flaws such as bubbles, crystal precipitates, undissolved components, and variegated colors due to the uneven distribution of iron in different valence states. When the variables of heat, firing time, kiln atmosphere, and chemical composition are controlled, the potter can produce such distinctive decorative features as oil-spot, hare’s-fur, and partridge-feather markings, as well as crystals at the glaze-body interface, not to mention the diverse hues of black and brown possible in the overall color.° The production of ceramics in northern China during the Song began with the gathering of local clay and the subsequent addition of quartz to act as a sintering agent, to give the clay body firing strength, and to prevent cracking. In the case of wares made in the south, feldspar was also added to supply K,O, Al,O,, and Na,O. After the clay had been prepared, the body was thrown on a wheel or, in the case of most white Ding wares from the late eleventh century onward, shaped over a

hump mold. Most of the objects studied were shallow bowls with a distinct footring. Once the clay body had dried to leather hardness, a slip and/or glaze would be applied by the potter, who would hold the bow] near the footring and dip the bowl into the slurry. As a consequence of this method of application, the glaze often would not reach the footring, and thus an unglazed area one or two centimeters in width would occur around the lower portion of the bowl. Finger imprints are often discernible where the potter grasped the bowl. White Ding bowls were placed upside down in their saggars, or protective cases, for firing. Because the glaze had to be wiped from the lip so the bowl would not fuse to the saggar, this firing method resulted in bowls with the body clay exposed at the lip. Often, the rim was later covered with a metal band to conceal the bare area.

Although white Ding bowls were fired upside down, dark glazed bowls were almost always fired right side up; thus metal bands on dark-glazed Ding pieces were applied simply for decoration. Silver, brass, bronze, and copper were commonly used; additionally, some bowls were finished with gold bands.

NORTHERN FROM

THE

CHINESE NORTHERN

WAB.ES, SONG

PREDOMINANTLY AND

JIN

PERIODS

The Northern Song (960-1127) and Jin (1115-1234) ceramics studied by Eva

Sander are stonewares characterized by bodies of high alumina and silica content, where the alumina is commonly

60

35 percent of the total and the silica is in excess of 60

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

percent, giving an overall total for these two oxides of around 95 percent by weight. The rest of the ceramic body is made up of such minor oxides as CaO, Na,O, MgO, K0), Mot), Wit... aiid Pet).

The raw materials for these ceramics are thought to be local aluminum-silicate clays which contain varying amounts of such impurities as mica, quartz, and iron silicates or oxides. There is no evidence that feldspar was intentionally added to either body or glaze clay.

The ceramics were fired at 1250 degrees Celsius or higher, and the clays were thermally transformed into mullite (3A1,O,-2S10,) in a silica-rich liquid which then became glass as the pieces cooled. Quartz (S10,,) was partly melted and some conversion to cristobalite occurred. The presence of alkalis facilitates the transformation from quartz to glass by lowering the melting temperature of the reacted quartz. The glaze has the same ingredients as the bodies, but the percentage of certain oxides such as FEO, MgO, Na,O, MnO, and CaO—referred to as fluxing agents—1s much higher in the glaze. These oxides have the effect of lowering the melting temperature of the starting material and converting it into glass. At comparable temperatures, the clay component of the body only partially converts to glass while the other components of the body, such as quartz and iron silicates or oxides, are sintered. There is often a reaction zone at the interface of body and glaze where anorthite (calcium plagioclase feldspar) crystals and bubbles develop during the long cooling period following firing. These bubbles and crystals lend a scintillating effect to the light penetrating the dark glazes, and thus greatly contribute to their lustrous appearance. The bowls made in northern China during the Northern Song period were produced by at least two principal sets of kilns: the Ding kilns in Hebei province and the Cizhou system of kilns which stretched through Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, and Shaanxi provinces. Traditionally the Ding kilns produced white wares, with the occasional black or brown piece among them. The Cizhou kilns specialized in a range of slip-decorated wares of bold design, sometimes with brown and black glazes. The Harvard collection includes numerous northern brown- and black-glazed wares. Kilns of manufacture can be quickly pinpointed for some of the pieces—those from the Ding and Yaozhou kilns, for example—but others defy ready identification; many of the latter must have been produced at one or another of the numerous Cizhou-type kilns. In order to identify their origin, several of these pieces were analyzed and compared to standard samples from well-known kiln sites that produced Ding and Cizhou wares. Ding ware is a distinctive porcelaneous stoneware produced in Hebei

province at Jianzi village in Quyang county, during Song, Jin, and Yuan times. Ding wares commonly have a hard white body with a clear ivory-tinged glaze, though examples with russet and black glazes (see cat. nos. 12-19) were produced at the same kilns as the white Ding wares. Dark-glazed Ding wares were seldom decorated. The earlier bowls were wheel-thrown, but later pieces were often shaped over hump molds.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

61

Cizhou-type wares were manufactured at numerous kilns spread over an arc of several hundred miles across northern China from the late Tang dynasty (618-907) through the end of the Yuan (1279-1368), and even into the Ming (1368-1644). Cizhou wares are characterized as high-fired stonewares with one or more underglaze slips and boldly incised, carved, or painted decoration. The bodies vary 1n texture and color, commonly being off-white, buff, or ight gray. Glazes were clear and the best estimate is that the firing temperature was around 1250 degrees Celsius. Many of the black and brown wares featured in our studies and in this exhibition are related to the Cizhou wares, since their bodies are similar 1n color and texture, while their glazes are often dark brown with “oil-spot” or “partridge-feather” decoration. The following wares were examined and chemically analyzed on the electronbeam microprobe and the scanning electron microscope: DarRK

DING

STANDARD

WARE: CIZHOU

CIZHOU-TYPE

1942.185.411 WARE:

(cat. no. 16), 1942.185.404 (no. 18)

1977.23

DARK-GLAZED

WARE:

(not in exhibition) 1942.185.436 (no. 31), 1942.185.406 (no.

34), 1942.185.434 (no. 36), 1942.185.427 (no. 37a), 1942.185.430 (no. 45a)

Examination

The Ding wares were found to be the exception among all these northern Chinese ceramics in that their bodies, as observed on the footrings and elsewhere, are

much glassier than the bodies of other wares, and they exhibit a conchoidal fracture at chipped sites, while all the other wares display irregular fractures in chipping. The hardness of the Ding bodies is also greater, measuring 7.5—8.0 on the Mohs’ scale, as opposed to 6.5—7.0 for the various Cizhou-type wares. Examined specifically for its glaze, bowl 1942.185.430 (no. 45a) revealed that

its partridge-feather decoration 1s flat brown 1n color and texture, and lies on the surface of the glaze. This could be seen very easily where minute chips interrupted the decorated surface. Inspection of this and other pieces by X-ray fluorescence analysis confirmed the presence of iron 1n all the brown and black glazes. A summary of the visual observations and hardness tests 1s given in Table 1. X-ray diffraction analyses were carried out on several clay-body samples obtained by scratching the footring with a diamond point to remove a tiny amount of powder as sample. Analyses were conducted with a Gondolfi cylindrical camera using CuK alpha nickel-filtered radiation at 35 kilovolts at 10 milliamperes for about 18 hours. In all samples studied, the patterns showed strong mullite lines, moderate lines for quartz, and weak lines for cristobalite. No lines for feldspar were detected. The X-ray patterns for the samples taken from the Ding bowls were diffuse, results that are consistent with a large amount of glass in the body; the samples from the Cizhou-type wares gave a strong pattern with many well-resolved lines, indicating greater crystallinity. No other differences in composition were noted, and variations in the intensity of the X-ray lines cannot be considered diagnostic.

62

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Quantitative Analysis Both body and glaze were analyzed in as many bowls as circumstances permitted. Body samples were taken from the inside wall of the footring, using a diamond saw; a small sample was removed—approximately 3 x 4 millimeters— which did not show from the outside when the bowl was placed in an upright position. Glaze samples were taken from the base or inside wall of the footring, where the potter had splashed glaze during its application. The samples were prepared by mounting them in epoxy resin in a one-quarter-inch-diameter brass ring. The mounts were then cut flat and polished with diamond paste. After each polishing cycle the samples were cleaned 1n an ultrasonic cleaner, then they were mounted in a special holder, coated with carbon, and analyzed

in an electron-beam microprobe. Mineral standards were calibrated for nine oxides: Na,O, MgO,

AL,O,, SiO,, K,O, CaO, Ti0,, MnO,

and FeO. Ten sites per body

sample and five sites per glaze sample were selected and analyzed. The glazes were chemically homogeneous and did not require as many analyses per sample as the bodies, which exhibited separate phases and pinprick holes caused by burst bubbles. The data for the bodies was averaged over the ten points; because some of the totals were low, normalized values of the oxides were calculated to be

used as a basis of comparison. Except for Ding ware, the analyses did not show readily classifiable differences between the various bowls; in fact, the data underscore the sim-

ularity of the northern bowls produced by various kilns of the Cizhou family, rather than signaling obvious differences among them. The ratio of Al,O, to SiO, is high, around .54, with Al,O, averaging around 33 percent; the sum of Al,O, and SiO, together totaled about 94 percent by weight. Some generalizations can be made regarding Ding ware. Ding ware 1s higher in Na,O, CaO, MgO,

and MnO

than Cizhou-type wares, but the bodies of Cizhou-

type wares are higher in iron than Ding ware. A larger body of data might indicate some defining parameters, but it is impossible to generalize beyond the conclusions already stated with the current data set. The glazes have a much lower Al,O, to SiO, ratio, averaging .27; Al,O, and SiO, together total around 80 percent by weight. Tables 2 and 3 present the analyses of northern wares discussed so far. The data are presented in weight percent, with one sigma standard deviation.

A Case Study While many brown and black wares from the Northern Song are difficult to identify analytically, Ding wares show characteristic features. This was demonstrated by the analysis carried out by Earl S. Tai on a light-bodied russet-glazed bow], 1919.207 (no. 15); see Tables 2 and 3. The interior of this bowl shows faint traces of a

silded floral pattern which is described in detail elsewhere in this catalogue (see discussion no. I5).

The elucidation of the pattern on this bowl contributed to its identification as Ding ware. However, chemical analysis by electron-beam microprobe, visual

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

63

inspection, binocular microscopic examination of the body and glaze, and hardness tests on the body were also diagnostic. The first test employed was the Mohs’ hardness test, which showed the body to have a hardness of 7.5 to 8.0; these results compared favorably with those yielded by Eva Sander’s earlier study on dark Ding bowls 1942.185.411

(no. 16) and 1942.185.404 (no. 18). The body of the russet Ding bowl

was harder than the bodies of the various black and brown Cizhou-type wares tested. By contrast, all the glazes showed roughly the same value in hardness tests, and no differences were observed between the hardness of Ding glazes and those of other northern black and brown wares. Electron-beam microprobe analyses were done on a chip from the footring of the russet Ding bowl 1n question, the chip taken in a fashion similar to that described above. This analysis matched favorably with twenty-one separate analyses of Ding ware found in the literature. All elements analyzed—except Na,O, K,O, and MgO, which exceeded the limits slightly—lay within the range of the analyses carried out by the Nezu Institute.’ The ratio of Al,O, to SiO,, which was .63 for this bowl, compared with the average of .55 yielded by Sander’s earlier study of the two Ding pieces cited above. Visually, the light-colored body of the russet Ding bowl is delicately rendered with fine craftsmanship exhibited in the elegant proportions and uniform dimensions of its tapering sides. While chemical analysis alone may not be wholly definitive, the presence of the gold decoration, the whiteness and hardness of the body, and the similarity of the analyses to those of Ding wares—but not to Cizhou-type wares— make it certain that this piece belongs to the dark-glazed family of Ding wares.

Further Glaze Studies of Northern Cizhou-Type Wares In addition to the glazes described above, the glazes from one standard Cizhou dish, two oil-spot bowls, and one black-glazed bottle with decoration painted in russet slip were analyzed by Carol Warner. All of these glazes, with the exception of 1977.23——a standard, white-slipped, clear-glazed Cizhou dish from the Guantai kilns in Ci county, Hebei province—are characterized by a high percentage of fluxing agents. In general, iron contributes greatly to the color in the glazes. Light green celadon wares, for example, are produced at 3 to 4 percent iron oxide, while 4 to 6 percent iron oxide produces the dark glazes described here, which are characterized by a variety of black and brown patterns, and crystals that reside on the glaze surface. One particular dark glaze, the so-called “oil-spot” glaze, shows a pattern of round crystalline deposits on the surface; 1t was in order to present data on this oil-spot pattern on dark-glazed Song-dynasty bowls in the Museums’ permanent collection that this study was undertaken. Little is known about these northern ceramics in comparison with the southern Chinese Jian wares, which are well documented.

64

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Technical Examination

The objects to be studied were examined closely under a binocular microscope; those pieces showing such flaws as bubbles or small fractures, which could be used as sites for taking samples, were then selected for further study. Both X-ray diffraction and electron-beam microprobe quantitative analysis were run on various pieces, where appropriate. Two oil-spot bowls and one bottle were selected for diffraction analysis. Two samples were taken from 1942.185.423

(no. 44), and one each

from 1942.185.416 (no. 43a) and 1942.185.452 (no. §2).

In all cases hematite, Fe,O,, was the principal phase found, while quartz (probably from the body) was found in the two samples from 1942.185.423

(no. 44).

The presence of hematite indicates that the objects were fired in an atmosphere sufhciently oxidizing to produce hematite rather than magnetite, Fe,O,, which is typical of reducing atmospheres. Earlier studies have shown that a reducing atmosphere results in magnetite or a mixture of magnetite and hematite. It is possible that the mineral produced—which is a consequence of the ambient atmosphere 1n the kiln— is a result of the type of kiln structure employed. The glaze samples were analyzed for Na,O, MgO,

gh.

SU,

shy,

La),

K,O, Ti0,, Fe,O,, and MnO by electron-beam microprobe. Eight samples—each less than one millimeter in size were taken from the four vessels. The results of the analyses show that, like the earlier glazes studied, they are lime-rich alkali glazes. The average Al,O, to SiO, ratio is .25, which is consistent with the results presented above. The average Al,O, and SiO, contents are 16.37 percent and 64.93 percent

respectively, giving a total of 81.3 percent, with the remainder being high lime-alkali flux. Alumina provides an important stiffening agent that prevents the glaze from flowing off the bowl during high-temperature firing. Melting temperatures were measured using a hot stage on a polarizing microscope. The heat source was a platinum-wound micro-furnace capable of reaching 1350 degrees Celsius. Sample 6 was taken from the rim of 1991.235—a small oil-spot

lotus-bud jar with a glaze similar to that of catalogue number s0—and Sample 9T was removed from the foot of 1991.226—a small-mouthed ovoid bottle with slip-painted decoration of two birds in flight, similar to catalogue number $3. Both samples melted in the range of 1150 to 1170 degrees Celsius, slightly lower than the firing range of 1250 to 1310 degrees Celsius that is given in the literature for northern blackware glazes. This discrepancy may be accounted for by considering that the melting experiment only lasted a few minutes, while actual firing temperatures in the kiln lasted for at least one hundred hours. A long thermal soak at lower temperatures produces the same thermal effects as a short exposure to a higher temperature. The origin of the oil spots derives directly from the chemistry and thermal history of the glaze. Nigel Wood has shown that the best black and brown wares require levels of iron oxide around 6 percent in a lime-alkali glaze. Clay ash glazes with alkalis around 19 percent and iron oxide at 3 to 4 percent result in a turbid glaze with indistinct crystallinity.? Chinese potters experimenting with clay from the central

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

65

plains of northern China achieved a stable lime-alkali ratio that produced fine black glazes sometime during the Tang dynasty. At high temperatures, iron remains in solution and acts as a fluxing agent, contributing to the overall lowering of the melting temperature of the glaze. The oil spots occur when the solubility limit of around 6 percent of iron oxide is reached during cooling; if there is an excess of iron oxide, it will precipitate out onto the surface of the glaze. Analyses in this paper substantiate this observation. An average value of iron oxide for the oil-spot sites in six samples was 6.5 percent, while the overall glaze in these same bowls averaged 5.76 percent, just at the solubility limit. A number of other black and brown bowls without oil spots averaged 4.5 percent. SOUTHERN UP

TEE

CHINESE

SVUUTHERWN

WAKES, sUNG

PREDOMINANTLY

PERIOD

Following Eva Sander’s study of northern wares, Valentine Talland examined Song-period wares produced in southern China, along with some of their Japanese imitations. Called Jian ware (see cat. nos. 76-86), they are the product of kilns in the mountain valleys of northern Fujian province, in southeastern China. Dating to the Northern and Southern Song periods (960-1127; 1127-1279), Jian ceramics typically are partially vitrified wares having dark bodies, and glazes that range in color from

bluish black to brown and gray. They were used in local Chan (Zen) Buddhist monasteries, where visiting Japanese monks acquired them and carried them back to Japan; there they came to be known as temmoku wares, and they were much imitated, especially in the wares made by the Seto and Mino kilns. Compared to the northern wares, the bodies of southern wares are generally richer in iron, have more silica and less alumina, have more flux, and are not as hard

as the Japanese imitations. Despite their medium gray bodies, the Japanese wares represented here (1919.201 and 1931.262)—two tea bowls with subtle hare’s-fur glazes—

resemble Chinese wares from the south rather than those of the north, although there are perceptible differences between them. The methods of examination of these ceramics were the same as those employed for the northern wares, and included visual examination with attention to such features as color, coarseness and size of inclusions, tool marks, and the thickness of

the glaze. The hardness of the bodies and glazes was measured using the Mohs’ scale; X-ray diffraction analysis was carried out on powdered samples removed from the footrings with a diamond tool; chemical analyses were performed with a scanning electron microscope and electron-beam microprobe; and samples for probe analysis were taken from the footring with a diamond saw. Thrown on a wheel, Jian ware bowls were turned until reaching a thickness of 3 to § millimeters. The footring would be cut while the bowl was inverted; it sometimes shows uneven cracking, and sometimes has excess clay adhering to it. The bowls were dipped in the glaze slurry, dried, and then fired right side up in saggars that were stacked in the kiln. The glaze typically stops 2 to 3 millimeters short of the

66

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

TABLE

NORTHERN Accession Number

Catalogue Number

CHINESE WARES PHYSICAL

Type of Ware

I

(DING, CIZHOU, AND CHARACTERISTICS

Glaze Effects

Color of Body

Dark Ding Ware (Ding kilns, Quyang county, Hebei province) 1919.207 15 Russet Ding Gold decoration on inside

White

1942.185.411

16

Russet Ding

Flecked on both sides

White

1942.185.404

18

Tea-dust Ding

Tea-dust on both sides

White

Cizhou Ware (Guantai kilns, Ci county, Hebei province) 1977.20 Not in Cizhou Clear glaze over exhibition incised white slip

Light gray

CIZHOU-TYPE):

Inclusions

Hardness

Base and Footring

130

Lacks glaze

None

i230

Almost fully glazed

None

7.5

Some drops of glaze

Dark brown; varying sizes;

7.0

Lacks glaze; exposed body

heterogeneous

clay formed medium gray skin

Cizhou-Type Wares (various kilns) 1942.185.436 ol Cizhou-type

Black glaze; clear glaze over

white slip on rim Black glaze;

Light gray

Small; brown

6.9-/ 30

Lacks glaze

Off-white

Small; brown

ou

Glazed

1942.185.406

34

Cizhou-type

1942.185.434

36

Cizhou-type

Black glaze; brown mottles

Off-white

Large; dark brown

7.0

Glazed

1942.185.427

37a

Cizhou-type

Partridge-feather glaze inside

Light gray

Brown; heterogeneous

7.0

Lacks glaze

1942.185.430

45a

Cizhou-type

Partridge-feather glaze inside

Light gray

Dark brown

brown flecks on both sides

(mainly outside)

6.5-7 0

Lacks glaze; exposed body clay formed buff skin

footring; it pulls away from the lip during firing, due to gravitational forces. The rims were occasionally covered with metal bands of varying composition (compare nos. 77, 78). The kiln for firing such wares was usually in the form of a mound, though it was sometimes dug into a hillside. Table 4 shows the physical characteristics of Jian and Jizhou wares and some Japanese relations. Due to their thickness, Jian ware bowls seem surprisingly heavy. The clay body is composed of silicates deriving from local clay, crushed quartz, and feldspar, the last-named component providing the K,O and Na,O; in these southern wares, K,O predominates. X-ray diffraction shows that cristobalite and mullite occasionally form during firing, with the amount of mullite formed being less than in the bodies of northern wares; this suggests that the firing temperature was lower for the southern wares.

Japanese temmoku wares—that is, Japanese imitations of Chinese Jian ware— have proportionately more mullite than do southern Chinese wares; it is consequently probable that the Japanese temmoku pieces were fired at higher temperatures than the Chinese wares. An interesting difference between northern and southern Chinese

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

67

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black-glazed wares lies in the ratio of Al,O, to SiO,. The average of the three Jian bowls studied here was .42, and the average of the three Jian sherds was .32, while the average of the eight northern bowls studied was .54; clearly there is more alumina in the northern wares than in those from the south, reflecting basic differences in clays and other starting materials. The southern wares also show much higher concentrations of iron oxide, the average in the three bowls studied being 5.7 percent and that in the three sherds 4.7 percent; the average concentration in the eight northern pieces

was only 1.7 percent.

Table 5 shows the analyses of the bodies of Jian, Jizhou, and Japanese wares; Table 6 shows the analyses of Jian and Japanese glazes. All values are averaged and normalized; errors are expressed as one sigma standard deviation. NZWOU

WARE

WITH

PAPERCUT

DECORATION

As part of the overall study of brown- and black-glazed wares, four resistdecorated Jizhou bowls—of a type with so-called papercut decoration—were analyzed by Hope Gumprecht to try to determine the technique by which the decoration was achieved (compare cat. nos. 96-101). The bowls selected for examination and analysis were 1942.185.407, 1942.185.408

(cat. no. 99), 1942.185.409, and

1942.185.413; all have resist decoration and were previously damaged and repaired;

three have breaks across decorated areas, which provided ideal sampling sites. After disassembling the bowls, Gumprecht took minute samples from the decorated areas on the interior of the bowls along the breaks, and removed small sections from the edges of breaks with a diamond saw. Several suggestions have been advanced in the literature relating the technique of decoration on the Jizhou bowls to resist-dying techniques employed in textile decoration. Song-dynasty textile motifs include dragons and phoenixes—patterns that also appear on decorated Jizhou bowls (see nos. 96, 97) —along with butterflies (no. 96), mandarin ducks, floral rosettes (no. 101), plum blossoms (no. 98), bamboo, and

calligraphic panels (compare no. 100). When appears on the interiors of Jizhou bowls. Most authorities subscribe to the use nique of producing these decorative patterns. applied to the glaze surface; when the pieces the carbon did not burn off but remained in

it occurs, such decoration invariably of papercut resist as the probable techMedley suggests that paper cutouts were were fired in a reducing atmosphere, place, producing the visible papercut

design."° Variations on this idea occur in the literature, some suggesting that papercuts

were applied to the surface of a thin coat of glaze, after which the bowl was covered with a second glaze; when the papercuts were removed before firing, the first layer of glaze was exposed. Whether or not the ceramic technique derives from textile decoration remains unknown, but papercuts have long been used to embellish textiles in China. Jizhou bowls thus share motifs with Song textiles, and they may share certain techniques of decoration as well. In principle, there are also other ways to achieve the so-called papercut effect: by first coating the bowl with a light glaze, then incising the design through the glaze, Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

69

and finally applying a dark glaze just to the incised areas. Alternatively, one could spray a light slip over a dark glaze—creating the variegated buff appearance that characterizes these bowls—and then, before firing, scrape off portions of the lighter slip, revealing the dark glaze, to create the decorative pattern. It has also been suggested that the bowls were first coated with dark brown glaze, after which papercuts were affixed to the surface; bamboo ash might then have been applied to the interior of the bowl. Before firing, the papercuts could have been removed, revealing the dark brown glaze beneath; those areas of glaze with bamboo ash then fired a variegated buft color, while the areas under the papercuts remained dark brown. Various analytical methods were used to characterize the decorated areas. Visual examination, binocular microscopy, ultraviolet radiation and IR-vidicon were used to establish the condition of the bowls, since all had been broken and repaired in several places. Visual examination alone was sufficient to eliminate several of the suggested techniques of decoration. The bowls were first coated all over with dark brown glaze, as magnification shows that the lighter, buff background color flows into the darker color. Furthermore, raking light shows that the dark, decorated areas are slightly depressed, being lower than the surrounding buff-glazed areas; the depressed areas are also discernible to the touch. Thin sections of the samples were prepared for electron-beam microprobe analyses and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Spot analyses were made by electronbeam microprobe across the glaze surface, from the surrounding background to the

decorated areas.

Unfortunately, the analyses did not yield the anticipated differences between the decorated areas and the surrounding glaze. The assumption had been that the difference in color could be attributed to differences in the relative percentages of iron, but the iron was essentially constant across the entire surface, from decorated areas to

surrounding glaze. What we cannot determine by electron-beam microprobe is the valence of the iron that is present, which may also account for the color. For this, we must await future analyses by other methods. The thin sections were also examined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This is a surface analysis X-ray routine, analogous to X-ray fluorescence, that measures the binding energy of electrons on the atom or ion under study. Because the impinging energy is low, it measures only from I0 to $0 angstroms below the sample surface. Carbon was studied both because it is ubiquitous in the kiln atmosphere during firing, and because it might have entered into the glaze if the papercuts assumed to have been used in creating the resist designs were left on the bowl’s surface and then burned during firing. The surrounding glaze showed a single type of carbon site, while the decorated areas showed two types of sites. This information shows the difference between the two types of glaze; any interpretation, however, will require further experiments combining X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies of the glazes and a set of firing experiments using papercuts, and comparing that method with other means of producing the decoration.

70

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

TABLE

4

SOUTHERN CHINESE WARES (JIAN AND JIZHOU) AND SOME JAPANESE RELATIONS: PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS Catalogue Number

Color of Body

Base and Footring

Jian Ware (from the kilns at Shuiji, Jianyang county, Fujian province) 1942.185.422 Not in Jian tea bowl Variegated greenish exhibition brown glaze

Dark gray stoneware

Lacks glaze; body formed purplish

Jian tea bowl

Dark brown glaze with silvery markings

Dark gray

Hare’s-fur glaze; dark brown with rust markings

Dark gray stoneware

Lacks glaze; body formed purplish brown skin

Hare’s-fur glaze; dark

Dark gray

Lacks glaze; body

Accession Number

1942.185.441

Not in

Type of Ware

exhibition

1940.3

1940.4

79

Not in

Jian tea bowl

Jian tea bowl sherd

exhibition

1942.138

1942.140

Not in exhibition

Jian tea bowl sherd

Not in

Jian tea bowl sherd

exhibition

Glaze Effects

brown with rust markings

stoneware

brown skin

stoneware

formed purplish brown skin

Lacks glaze; body formed purplish brown skin

Hare’s-fur glaze; dark

Dark gray

brown with rust markings

stoneware

Dark brown

Dark gray

glaze

edged in brown

brown skin Lacks glaze; body formed purplish

stoneware

Lacks glaze; body

formed purplish brown

skin

Japanese Wares (various kilns) 1931.262

Not in exhibition

Mino ware, Seto type; tea bowl

Hare’s-fur glaze; dark brown with rust markings

Light gray stoneware

Lacks glaze

1968.150.1

Not in

Mino ware, Seto type; Nagas6 kiln; bowl sherd

Hare’s-fur glaze; dark

brown with rust markings

Light gray

Lacks glaze

exhibition

Not in exhibition

Maino ware, Seto type; Nagaso kiln; bowl sherd

Dark brown glaze with brown markings; perhaps an ash glaze

Not in exhibition

Kuro-Oribe ware,

Motoyashiki kiln;

Matte-surfaced,

1968.150.3

1968.148.2

dark brown glaze

stoneware

Light gray

Lacks glaze

stoneware

Light gray stoneware

Lacks glaze

Light gray

Lacks glaze

bowl sherd

Jizhou Ware (from the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province) 1950.83.4

Not in exhibition

Jizhou tea bowl

Dark brown glaze with

variegated bluish buff skin

stoneware

SUMMARY

Analyses show that northern brown and black wares have light-colored, high alumina-silicate stoneware bodies consisting mostly of mullite and glass with quartz and cristobalite; such wares were fired in excess of 1250 degrees Celsius. They have dark glazes that are rich in iron, lime, and alkali, and that are thin at the lip of the bowl; often there is an unglazed area of body surrounding the foot. They exhibit a variety of effects in their glazes, such as those termed oil-spot, hare’s-fur, and partridgefeather decoration, among others.

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Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

72

In contrast to northern brown and black wares, the bodies of southern and

Japanese wares are richer in iron and silica, but have less alumina; they are higher in potassium than in sodium flux, and are proportionately richer in quartz than mullite, but they are not as hard as northern Chinese wares. The glaze often pulls away from the lip in firing, and their lower portions and undersides are usually unglazed. Evidently, the Japanese potters used materials similar to those of the southern Chinese

wares in order to reproduce their appearance; possibly they used similar clays and additives based on their historical familiarity with Jian ware.

Acknowledgments I wish to thank David Lange of the Earth Sciences Department, Harvard University, for use of, and assistance with, the electron-beam microprobe; and Paul Whitmore, director of the Research Center on the Materials of the Artist and Conservator

at Carnegie Mellon Research Institute, for assistance with many of the analyses during his tenure as a conservation scientist at the Harvard University Art Museums’ Center

H

for Conservation and Technical Studies from 1986 to 1988. Eva Sander, “A Comparative Study of Northern Dark-Glazed Stoneware Bowls from the Song Dynasty,” unpublished research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a conservation internship in the Harvard University Art Museums’ Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 1987.

2 Valentine Talland, “Technical Examination of Southern Chinese Chien Ware and Japanese Copies in the Harvard University Art Museums’ Collection,” unpublished research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a conservation internship in the Harvard University Art Museums’ Center for Conservation and Technical Studies,

1988.

3 Carol Warner, “Black-Ware Bowls of the Northern Song Period: Glaze Analyses,” in Student Papers: Art Conservation Training Programs, Eighteenth Annual Conference, May 7-9, 1992, Art Conservation Program, Queens University at Kingston (Kingston, Ontario, 1992), n.p. 4 Hope Gumprecht, “An Investigation of Resist-Decorated Jizhou Ware,” unpublished research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a conservation internship in the Harvard University Art Museums’ Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 1990. § Earl S. Tai, “Analysis of a Sung Ceramic Bowl,” unpublished research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Fine Arts 202 (Seminar on Technical Examination of Works of Art), Harvard University, fall term 1990. 6 Pamela B. Vandiver,

“Ancient Glazes,” Scientific American 262, no. 4 (April, 1990): 106-13.

7 Nezu byutsukan [Nezu Institute of Fine Arts], Teiyd hakuji [White Porcelain of the Ding Kilns], exh. cat., Nezu Institute of Fine Arts (Tokyo, 1983), pp. 131-32, tables 1-3. 8 Not included in this exhibition, but published in Yutaka Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz’u-Chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D., exh. cat., Indianapolis Museum of Art (Indianapolis, 1980), pp. 92-93, no. 34. 9g Nigel Wood, “Introduction” in Iron in the Fire: The Chinese Potters’ Exploration of Iron Oxide Glazes, ed. The Oriental Ceramic

Society, exh. cat., Ashmolean Museum,

Oxford University (London,

1988), pp. 12-14. 10 Margaret Medley, The Chinese Potter: A Practical History of Chinese Ceramics (New York, 1976), p. 159.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

me

LIST

I. DING

OF

CERAMICS

WARE

Conical Bowl with Russet Glaze and with Traces of Floral Decor Chinese; Northern Song period, probably 11th century Russet Ding ware: porcelaneous stoneware with russet-surfaced dark brown glaze and with traces of decoration in overglaze gold leaf Probably from the kilns at Jianci village, possibly from those at East or West Yanchuan village,

Quyang county, Hebei province

H. 4.7 cm; Diam.

12.5 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Bequest of Hervey E. Wetzel [1919.207; catalogue number 15]

EXAMINED

From the Guantai kilns, Ci county, Hebei province H. 4.2 em: Diam.

20.1 em

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Choate [1977.23; not in the exhibition] Ml.

CIZHOU-TYPE

WARES

Conical Bowl with Black Glaze and White Rim Chinese; Northern Song period, probably late

t1th—early rath century

Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the mm with clear glaze over white slip H. §0eme

Dian.

14.2 ti

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Bowl with Variegated Russet Glaze with Small Brown Flecks Chinese; Northern Song period, probably late t1th—early 12th century Russet Ding ware: porcelaneous stoneware with

russet-surfaced dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide

Probably from the kilns at Jianci village, possibly from those at East or West Yanchuan village, Quyang county, Hebei province H, $.4:c0e Dian,

13.0 cm

Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

Dane [1942.185.436; catalogue number 31] Conical Bowl with Russet Flecks Chinese; Northern Song period, 11th—early 12th century

Northern black ware of Cizhou type: off-white stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide H. $7 ce

Diam.

19.2 ain

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University

Art Museums,

Art Museums,

Dane [1942.185.406; catalogue number 34|

Dane

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

[1942.185.411; catalogue number

16]

Bowl with Tea-Dust Glaze Chinese; Northern Song period, probably late 11th—early 12th century Tea-dust-glazed Ding ware: porcelaneous stoneware with brownish green, tea-dust glaze Probably from the kilns at Jianci village, possibly from those at East or West Yanchuan village, Quyang county, Hebei province H..§-7 cm; Diam,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

Conical Bowl with Partridge-Feather Mottles Chinese; Northern Song period, 11th—-early 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: off-white stoneware with dark brown glaze, the russet markings in overglaze iron oxide H..§.4-cm

Diam.

19.5 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

Dane [1942.185.434; catalogue number 36]

18.4 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

Dane [1942.185.404; catalogue number 18] WH. STANDARD

CIZHOU

WARE

Dish with Lotus Decor Chinese; Jin dynasty, 12th century Cizhou ware: white-slip-coated light gray stoneware with the decoration incised in the

white slip under clear glaze

74

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Conical Bowl with Partridge-Feather Mottles Chinese; Northern Song to Jin period, late 11th-first half 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: off-white stoneware with dark brown glaze, the exteriors with russet skin, the interiors with russet markings in overglaze iron oxide H. 4.5 cm; Diam.

16.5 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University

Art Museums, Dane

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

[1942.185.427; catalogue number

37a]

Small Bowl with Indented Lip and Silver OilSpot Decoration Chinese; Jin dynasty, probably 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron-bearing slip, the lowest portion dressed with black slip

From the Xiaoyu cun kilns at Huairen, Shanxi province

H. 4.8 cm; Diam. 9.2 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

Dane [1942.185.416; catalogue number 43a| Tea Bowl with Indented Lip and with Five Large Silver Splashes against a Ground of Silver Oil Spots Chinese; Jin dynasty, probably 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron-bearing slip, the lowest portion dressed with dark purplish brown slip Probably from the Xiaoyu cun kilns at Huairen, Shanxi province H. 7.4 cm; Diam.

13.6cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Dane

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

[1942.185.423; catalogue number 44]

Small Bowl with Flaring Lip and PartridgeFeather Mottles Chinese; Jin dynasty, probably 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the russet markings in overglaze iron oxide H, 4.1 em; Dim,

tidscm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

Dane [1942.185.430; catalogue number 45a] Small, Lotus-Bud-Shaped Jar with Silvery Brown Oil Spots Chinese; Jin dynasty, 12th—-13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide H, §.2-ems Dian, 9.7 em

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Zuellig [1991.235; not in the exhibition] Long-Necked, Pear-Shaped Bottle with Decoration of Two Stylized Birds in Flight

Chinese; Jin dynasty, late 12th—first half 13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the russet decoration painted in overglaze iron oxide H. 30.5 cm; Diam.

16.0 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Dane

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

[1942.185.452; catalogue number

$2]

Ovoid Bottle with Small, Double-Ringed Mouth and Decoration of Two Stylized Birds in Flight Chinese; Jin dynasty, late 12th—first half 13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration painted in overglaze iron oxide H, 20.7 cn

Diam,

17-7 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

Fund for the Acquisition of Oriental Art [1991.226; not in the exhibition|

IV. JAN WARE Tea Bowl with Indented Lip and Russet Hare’sFur Markings Chinese; Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide From the kilns at Shui, Jianyang county, Fujian province H. 6.6 cm; Diam.

12.4 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Dr. Horace Emerson Campbell [1940.3; catalogue number 79] Sherd from a Tea Bowl with Indented Lip and Brown Hare’s- Fur Markings Chinese; Northern to Southern Song period,

12th—13th Jian ware: glaze, the From the province

century dark gray stoneware with dark brown markings in iron oxide kilns at Shuiyji, Jianyang county, Fujian

L. 6.3 cm; W.

12.0 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Dr. Horace Emerson Campbell [1940.4; not in the exhibition] Sherd from a Tea Bowl with Brown Hare’sFur Markings Chinese; Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

75

Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide From the kilns at Shui, Jianyang county, Fujian province

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University

L. 6.0 cm; W.

Tea Bowl with Hare’s-Fur Markings Japanese; Momoyama to Edo period, 16th—17th century Mino ware, Seto type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide, the rim bound with metal

11.0 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of James M. Plumer [1942.138; not in the exhibition]

Sherd from a Small Tea Bowl Edged with Brown

Art Museums, Bequest of Hervey E. Wetzel [1919.201; not in the exhibition]

Chinese; Northern to Southern Song period,

Hi. 6.

12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings 1n iron oxide

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University

Fujian province

Sherd from a Tea Bowl with Hare’s-Fur Markings Japanese; Momoyama to Edo period, 16th—17th century Mino ware, Seto type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide From the Nagaso kiln, Seto

From the kilns at Shui, Jianyang county,

H. 7.8 cm; W. 9.0 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of James M. Plumer [1942.140; not in the exhibition] Conical Tea Bowl Chinese; Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with variegated greenish brown glaze, the rim bound with metal From the kilns at Shuji, Jianyang county,

Fujian province

H. 5.4 cm; Diam.

11.9 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

Dane |1942.185.422; not in the exhibition|

em

Dim,

Art Museums,

1i9:6m

Anonymous

gift [1931.262; not in

the exhibition]

L. 4.1 ems W.

3.4 om

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Usher P. Coolidge [1968.150.1; not in the exhibition]

Sherd from a Tea Bowl with Brown Markings Japanese; Momoyama to Edo period, 16th—17th century Mino ware, Seto type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, perhaps an ash glaze From the Nagaso kiln, Seto L. 4.9 cm; W. 4.0 cm

Tea Bowl with Indented Lip and Silvery Markings Chinese; Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide, the rim bound with metal From the kilns at Shuiji, Jianyang county, Fujian province H. 6.6 cm; Diam.

13.0 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Usher P. Coolidge [1968.150.3; not in the exhibition] Sherd from a Bowl Japanese; Momoyama to Edo period, 16th—17th century Kuro-Oribe ware: light gray stoneware with matte-surfaced dark brown glaze

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University

From the Motoyashiki kiln, Kujin, Mino

Art Museums,

province, Gifu prefecture

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

Dane [1942.185.441; not in the exhibition]

L. 7.3 cm; W.

7.7 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum,

V. JAPANESE

WARES

Tea Bowl with Hare’s- Fur Markings Japanese; Momoyama to Edo period, 16th—17th century Mino ware, Seto type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide, the

rim bound with metal H. 3.2.emy Diam.

76

12.5 em

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Harvard University

Art Museums, Gift of Usher P. Coolidge [1968.148.2; not in the exhibition]

VI. JIZHOU WARE Conical Bowl with Stylized Floral Decor Chinese; Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark

brown glaze, and with papercut decoration reserved in dark brown glaze against a variegated buff ground on the interior From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 5.3 cm; Diam.

15.6 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Dane

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

[1942.185.407; not in the exhibition]

Conical Bowl with Foliate Rim and Decoration of

Rhinoceros, Moon, and Stylized Cloud

Chinese; Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, and with papercut decoration reserved in dark brown glaze against a variegated buff ground on the interior From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province i. G60

Dian,

Dc

From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province Fi. Tul tae Dis.

168 CH

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

Dane [1942.185.409; not in the exhibition] Conical Bowl with Decoration of Two Phoenixes in Flight and Two Stylized Blossoms Chinese; Southern Song period, 12th—13th century

Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark

brown glaze, and with papercut decoration reserved in dark brown glaze against a variegated buff ground on the interior From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province He 4a

ems Diath.

15.4 Git

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Dane

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

[1942.185.413; not in the exhibition]

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt

Dane [1942.185.408; catalogue number 99] Bowl with Decoration of a Stylized Blossom and Three Phoenixes in Flight Chinese; Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, and with papercut decoration reserved in dark brown glaze against a variegated buff ground on the interior

Tea Bowl Chinese; Southern Song period,

12th—13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with variegated dark brown glaze From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 6.0 cm; Diam. 11.5 cm (maximum) Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Bequest of Helen Pratt Dane [1950.83.4; not in the exhibition]

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

if

Catalogue of the Exhibition

i] EWER

WITH

DISHED

DoOUBLE-DRAGON

MOUTH,

HANDLE,

DOUBLE-CHICKEN-HEADED

AND

SPOUT

Six Dynasties period, Southern Dynasties, late 4th—first half sth century Brown-glazed ware of Yue type: light gray stoneware with mottled medium brown glaze Probably from the Deqing or Yuhang kilns, Zhejiang province H. (maximum) The Scheinman

25.6 cm; Diam. Collection

15.9 cm

[37]

Expanding rapidly from the flat base, the relatively straight walls of this ewer curve inward to form the slanted shoulder, from which rises the long neck with its low-rimmed,

dished mouth. The double-

strand handle arches upward from the bulging shoulder, curving downward on itself at the top to terminate in a single dragon head that bites the rim of the mouth. Opposite the handle, joined twin cylindrical spouts rise vertically from the shoulder, their tops culminating in schematized chicken heads with distinct combs, tubular beaks, and circular eyes. A

pierced, angular lug with three facets appears on e1ther side of the shoulder, midway between handle and spout. The walls flare subtly at the bottom to form the flat base. A mottled, medium brown glaze coats the exterior of the vessel, save the base, which

is unglazed; the glaze appears dark where it 1s thick, and amber where it is thin. The unglazed areas fired a light gray color. The ewer was turned on the potter’s wheel in sections that were luted together after drying. The twin spouts were molded, and the dragon handle was hand-constructed, after which they were applied to the assembled ewer before its glazing. Called jitouhu (chicken-headed jars or ewers) 1n Chinese, celadon-glazed vessels of this type became a staple of the Yue kilns of northeastern Zhejiang province during the fourth century. Kilns at Deqing and nearby Yuhang,' in northern Zhejiang province, quickly followed suit, producing a variety of Yuetype vessels by the second half of the fourth century; their wares included chicken-headed ewers, some

with celadon glaze, but most with brown glaze.* In fact, it appears that the Deqing and Yuhang kilns were the earliest in China to sustain production of high-fired stonewares with an even coating of medium or dark brown glaze. Closely related in chemical composition to standard Yue ware, their brown glazes contain a higher percentage of iron

80

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

oxide (c. 6 percent vs. 2-3 percent) as a coloring agent.’ Like most ash-rich glazes, those from Deqing and Yuhang tend to be highly fluid and crystalline, sometimes resulting in an uneven coating that imparts a mottled appearance. Ceramic production apparently continued in the Deqing region well into the Tang dynasty —as attested by the discovery there in 1980 ofa brownglazed food jar with an inscribed date corresponding to 8084—and probably into the early Song as well.° Since the Deqing kilns are not recorded 1n the Deging xianzhi [Gazetteer of Deqing County] and since only preliminary excavations have been carried out at the Deqing and Yuhang kilns, dates are assigned to individual pieces by stylistic analogy to similar pieces recovered from dated tombs and to related Yue pieces of known date. Mid-fourth-century ewers have a slightly compressed, globular body whose center 1s the widest point of the vessel; the chicken-headed spout of such vessels is not only short, but characteristically single; in addition, the neck 1s relatively short and the handle arches outward, echoing the bulging belly, rather than upward, and seldom projects above the dished mouth.°® As this handsome

ewer well illustrates, late-

fourth- and early-fifth-century examples are tall and they have straight but expanding sides with a rounded shoulder that stands as the widest point of the vessel. Anticipating the soaring, double-stranded, dragon-headed handle, the chicken-headed spouts on late-fourth- and early-fifth-century examples tend to

be both tall and double. Late-fifth- and sixth-century ewers tend to be tall and attenuated, often with a

slight S-curve to the profile; in addition, they often have double lugs on either side of the shoulder and the chicken-headed spout becomes larger and more

naturalistic, the beak pointed rather than tubular, for

example, and the neck curved rather than straight and cylindrical.’ Interpreting the head atop the spout as that of a phoenix rather than that of a chicken, a few scholars have termed such vessels “dragon-phoenix ewers”’ (longfenghu), sometimes also seeing them as early examples of the paired dragon-and-phoenix motif. In fact, the heads are more likely chicken heads and probably have little, if any, symbolic meaning. As such, the ewers share in the fourth- to sixth-century vogue for ceramic vessels in the form of animals, from bird- and lion-shaped jars to frog-shaped water coupes for the scholar’s desk. Such curious hybrids reflect the potters’ willingness to experiment with new forms and new types of decoration as they cast aside the strictures of the ancient bronze tradition that had previously dictated most shapes and

Chinese Brou m- and Black-Glazed

Ceramics

81

3 Oriental Ceramic Society, Iron in the Fire: The Chinese

decorative schemes. Though it might have been placed in a tomb, this ewer was probably made for use by the living, as indicated by its hollow, functional spouts that communicate with the body; ewers made expressly for burial often have solid spouts which do not permit the contents to be poured. The Tokyo National Museum and the Freer

Potters’ Exploration of Iron Oxide Glazes, exh. cat., Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (London, 1988), p. 32, no. 6;

Zhu Bogian and Lin Shimin, “Woguo heici di qiyuan ji qi yingxiang” [The Origins of Chinese Black-Glazed Stonewares and Their Influence], Kaogu 12 (1983): 1133.

4 Zhang Haichu, “Zhejiang Deging faxian Tangdai heiyou liangying” [The Discovery of a Tang-Dynasty BlackGlazed Food-Storage Jar at Deqing, Zhejiang], Wenwu 2

Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., each own a simi-

lar vessel, each having but a single chicken-headed spout,” while the Meiyintang Collection includes a larger but otherwise virtually identical ewer.’ All are dated to the fifth century. A related example in celadon-glazed Yue ware appears in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.'° Although most brown-glazed ewers of this kind were produced at kilns in the Deqing area, attributions must be approached with caution. In the same way that potters in the Deqing region imitated the wares of the Yue kilns, potters at other kilns took inspiration from wares produced at Deqing and Yuhang. Two medium brown-glazed, chickenheaded ewers—strikingly similar to this one—were

(1989): 96. 5s Zhejiang sheng wenwu guanli wetyuanhui,

6 See ibid., p. 51 and pl. 2; Yutaka Mino and Katherine R. Tsiang, Ice and Green Clouds: Traditions of Chinese Celadon,

exh. cat., Indianapolis Museum of Art (Indianapolis, 1986), pp. 88-89, no. 29; Nanjing shi bowuguan kaoguzu [Nanjing Municipal Museum, Department of Archaeology], “Nanjing Jiaoqu sanzuo Dong Jin mu”

326 and pl. 5, no. 2; Okazaki Takashi, Chiigoku kodai

[Ancient China], Sekai toji zenshii [Ceramic Art of the

World] series, vol. 10 (Tokyo,

no. 36; Okazaki, Chiigoku kodai, pp. 108—9, no. 98; Mary Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Oxford, 1976), p. 37, nos. 79-80.

co

p. 45, no. 55.

HH

I

58, fig. 13.

Nu

Zhejiang sheng wenwu guanli weiyuanhui [Zhejiang Cultural Artifacts Preservation Committee], “Deqingyao ciqi” [High-Fired Wares from the Deqing Kilns], Wenwu

2 (1959): SI.

82

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

(Tokyo, 1994),

See Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Metyintang Collection (London, 1994), vol. I, pp. 94-95, no. ISI.

10 See Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware, p. 37, no. 78.

“Chinese Ceramics from the Collection of Peter and Irene Scheinman,” Orientations vol. 23, no. 9 (September 1992):

1 Four kilns have been investigated at Deqing: those at Jiaoshan, Daijiashan, Chenshan, and Dingshan. Two kilns have been investigated at Yuhang: one at Guoyuan and the other less than a kilometer away. Ceramics from the Yuhang kilns resemble those from the Deqing kilns. The Yuhang kilns produced mainly dark-glazed wares, including chicken-headed ewers in three distinct sizes. Feng Xianming, “Sanshinian lai woguo taoci kaogu di shouhuo” [The Achievements of Chinese Ceramic Archaeology during the Past Thirty Years], Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 1 (1980): 5.

See Freer Gallery of Art, The Freer Gallery of Art (Tokyo, 1972), vol. 1, China, p. 174, no. 86; Tokyo kokuritsu hakubutsukan [Tokyo National Museum], Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten [Chinese Ceramics: A Special Exhibition], exh. cat., Tokyo National Museum

\O

Park, Md., 1992), pp. $2—-53, no. 25; Frances Klapthor,

1982), p. 108, no. 97.

7 See Mino and Tsiang, Ice and Green Clouds, pp. 102-3,

eroup of cliff burials discovered at Mianyang, Sichuan province, for example. Because they resemble ones made at Jiuling, about twenty kilometers away, the ceramics from those tombs are presumed to have been produced at Jiuling."* Until extensive excavations have been carried out at all kilns manufacturing similar wares, exact kiln attributions will remain elusive. Chinese Ceramics from the Scheinman Collection, Studies in Chinese Art History and Archaeology series, vol. 1 (College

[Three

Eastern Jin Tombs in Jiaoqu, Nanjing], Kaogu 4 (1983):

among the 147 ceramics recovered in 1984 from the

PUBLISHED: Jason C. Kuo, ed., Born of Earth and Fire:

“Deqingyao

cil, pu $2

Mianyang bowuguan

[Mianyang Museum],

“Sichuan

Mianyang Xishan Liuchao yaimu” [The Six Dynasties Cliff Burials at Xishan, Mianyang, Sichuan], Kaogu 11 (1990): 1024-26 and fig. 2, no. 20.

2 PILGRIM JAR WITH AND

WITH

AMIDST

Two

DECORATION

FRUITING

Loop OF

A

HANDLES PHOENIX

GRAPEVINES

Sui to Tang dynasty, late 6th—7th century Molded light gray stoneware with russet-skinned dark brown glaze H. 21.9 cm; W. 19.1 cm (across loop handles) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mrs. Samuel T. Peters, 1926 [26.292.44]

Lens-shaped in section, this heavy, ovoid jar stands on a tall, solid foot of truncated triangular form. Its

of Art.

N

Copyright © 1995 by The Metropolitan Museum

curving walls define a rounded central container from whose apex rises a short cylindrical neck with a squared and well-articulated lip. A small loop handle sits atop each shoulder. Bordered by a narrow band of small circles with a low-relief sphere in the indentation at the top, a heart-shaped— or, in Chinese parlance, a peach-shaped—field with relief decoration dominates each of the jar’s two identical faces. A slender, heraldic-style phoenix strides through the center of each

field, neck arched, tail raised, wings

outstretched. Growing from the implied groundline, a stylized plant not only supports the phoenix, but gives rise to the fruiting grapevines that scroll through the composition, framing the phoenix.

Suspended from the low-relief sphere in the border, a palmette appears above the head of the phoenix. A russet-skinned, dark brown glaze covers the vessel, except for the flat base and the lowest portion of the foot, which are unglazed. The unglazed portions fired a light buff color. The jar was molded in two sections that were luted together along the sides after the clay had dried, but before the glaze was applied. By tradition, the phoenix, or fenghuang, appears in times of peace and prosperity. It numbers among the four divine creatures, or siling, mentioned in the

Zhou-dynasty Liji [Book of Rites], along with the dragon, gilin (unicorn), and tortoise." It presides over the heavens’ southern quadrant and thus symbolizes

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

83

the sun and warmth. Phoenix imagery had firmly established itself in the pictorial arts of the Warring States (481-221 B.c.) and Han (206 B.C.—A.D. 220) periods, the auspicious red bird appearing in the company of the green dragon, white tiger, and entwined black snake and tortoise which symbolize, respectively, east, west, and north.*A creature of

good omen, the phoenix began to appear independently in the visual arts during the Six Dynasties period (220-589). Depictions from the Six Dynasties, Sui (§81-618), and early Tang (618-907) periods typically show the phoenix striding 1n a manner akin to that seen on this jar;? from the late Tang and Five Dynasties (907-960) periods onward, however, the phoenix is usually shown in flight, its segmented tail flowing gracefully behind. Tradition asserts that the domesticated grape (Vitis vinifera) was introduced into China 1n 126 B.c. by the Han-dynasty Minister Zhang Qian on his return from a diplomatic mission to Western Asia, where he had learned wine-making from the Persians. Tradition further asserts that he discovered in Khotan or Ferghana a variety of grape suitable for the production of wine.* Making its debut in the arts of the Six Dynasties, the grape was adopted as a favored motif by silversmiths of the Tang, perhaps because of the enticing calligraphic possibilities offered by its scrolling tendrils and branches. About the same time, artists working in the Buddhist cave temples at Dunhuang (in Gansu province) began to utilize scrolling grapevines as borders for some of their large wall paintings, their representations similar in style to the vines appearing on this jar. Called bianhu (literally, “flattened jars”) in Chinese, two-sided jars of flattened form with a small mouth and two loop or lug handles on the shoulder are often termed “pilgrim jars” or “pilgrim flasks” in English, fanciful names that have little to do with their function as storage containers. Ovoid jars set atop tall triangular bases had already begun to appear among the celadon-glazed wares produced at the Yue kilns in the third century, during the Western Jin period (265—316),° perhaps the progeny of the high-footed bronze vessels popular in the Eastern Han (25-220). Although they lack relief decoration, such early ceramic examples already boast an undecorated field bordered by a narrow band of small circles with a low-relief ornament at the top, the clear ancestor of the border on this vessel. By the second half of the sixth century, related jars often sported molded relief decoration depicting figures arranged in a generally symmetrical composition, as attested by the caramel-glazed example with a dancer amidst four musicians excavated from the tomb of Fan Cui

84

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

in Anyang county, Hebei province. The tomb dates

to $75.°

Because the kiln that made these jars has not yet

been discovered, let alone excavated, dates are as-

signed on the basis of stylistic similarity to related, though not necessarily identical, examples recovered from dated contexts. The recovery of a brownglazed jar with relief decoration of lions from a Tang site at Yulincheng, Shengzhou, in Inner Mongolia, establishes that jars related to the Metropolitan Museum jar were being made in Tang times.’ Of greater importance, two related pieces with relief decoration have been excavated from late-sixth- and earlyseventh-century sites, evincing that such jars had definitely appeared by the Sui to early Tang period: a yellow-glazed jar with figures amidst grapevines from the Sui stratum of the Xing kilns in Neiqiu county, Hebei province,* and a white-glazed jar with a crested, winged monster mask from a tomb dated to 608.? And in 1970, a silver box emblazoned with a striding phoenix very much akin to those on the Metropolitan jar was recovered from the seventhcentury stratum at an excavation in Hejia village, Xi’an.*° Such excavation results not only allow an

attribution of the Metropolitan jar to the late sixth

century or the seventh,’* but suggest that the jar was

produced in North China, perhaps in Hebei or Henan province. Closely related pieces in museum collections include an almost identical jar with dark brown glaze in the British Museum,

London;’* another in the

Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures, Ashiya, Japan, that recently has been assigned to the Northern Qi (550-577) to Sui period (s81-618);** an olive-glazed but otherwise identical jar in the Metropolitan Museum (no. 16.165), traditionally dated

“Tang or earlier”;'* and an unpublished jar with dark

bluish brown glaze over relief decoration of a boy standing between confronting lions in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago (no. 119067), attributed to the Sui to early Tang period. Such sixth- to early-seventh-century jars usually have a well-molded, clearly defined field bordered by a narrow, beaded band, and the skillfully com-

posed decorative scheme typically incorporates open space around the representational elements so that the design is easily read. Their glazes range from yellow and olive to caramel, dark brown, and russetskinned. While the time span during which such pilgrim jars were produced remains unknown, two scholars have assigned a few individual pieces to the mid- and late-Tang periods. William Watson, for example, has convincingly attributed a brown-glazed

jar in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, to

faxian” [Discoveries at Sui- and Tang-Period Yulincheng, Shengzhou], Wenwu 2 (1976): 78, 81, pl. Is. CO

the seventh- to early eighth century on the basis of its complex design. The design treats plants more naturalistically than most sixth- or early-seventhcentury pieces; in addition, it spreads over the whole of each face without the constraint of formal borders,

able from their enveloping vines on first inspection.* Based on the results of a thermoluminescence test,

Hebei Province], color plate 1.

5

Regina Krahl has recently assigned a similar jar in the Metyintang Collection to the ninth or tenth century.'° A simple beaded border contains the decoration on the Meiyintang jar, but the decorative field is much larger than those on standard sixth- to earlyseventh-century examples, and with its elaborately feathered face, the phoenix shows more kinship to Five Dynasties-period representations than to those of the late Six Dynasties, Sui, and early Tang. Although such pilgrim jars are sometimes said to have been introduced from foreign lands, the thirdcentury celadon-glazed example from the Yue kilns mentioned above indicates the Chinese origin of the vessel shape. However, with their palmettes, their musicians in Central Asian dress, their Hellenistic-

style grapevines, and their scantily clad boys between Persian-style lions, the decorative schemes do indeed incorporate an array of foreign elements that were introduced via textiles and metalwork imported over

\O

and it so insistently intertwines its representational elements that the figures are not readily distinguish-

See Neigiu xian wenwu baoguansuo [Neiqiu County Antiquities Preservation Department], “Hebei sheng Neigiu xian Xingyao diaocha jianbao” [A Brief Report on the Investigations at the Xing Kilns, Neiqiu County, Wenwu 9 (1987): 5, fig. 10, no. 19, and

Tang Jinyu, “Xi’an Xyiao Sui Li Jingxun mu fajue jian-

bao” [A Bnef Report on the Sui Tomb of Li Jingxun in Xiyiao, X1’an|, Kaogu 9 (1959): 472 and pl. 3, no. 8.

10 See Duan Pengqi, “X1’an Nanjiao Hejia cun Tangdai jinyinqi xiaoyi” [A Brief Discussion of the Tang Gold

and Silver from Hejia Village, Nanjiao, Xi'an], Kaogu 6 (1980): 539, fig. I, top register, center.

11 The results of a thermoluminescence test performed in the analytical laboratory of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in late 1994 on a sample taken from the base of this

jar proved that the jar is ancient, but were insufficiently conclusive to permit the assignment of a specific date. I am grateful to Suzanne G. Valenstein of the Metropolitan Museum, both for having the TL test done and for verbally conveying the results to me. 12 See S. J. Vainker, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain from Prehistory to the Present (New York, 1991), p. 63, fig. 45.

13 See Tokysé kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 66, no. 95; Sato Masahiko and Hasebe Gakuji, Zui To [Sui and Tang], Sekai toji zenshii [Ceramic Art of the World] series, vol. 11 (Tokyo, 1976), p. 38,

no. 25.

the fabled Silk Route.

14 See Warren E. Cox, The Book of Pottery and Porcelain, rev. 1 Ch’u Chai and Winberg Chai, eds., Li Chi: Book of Rites

ed. (New York, 1970), vol. 1, p. 97, pl. 25.

(New Hyde Park, N.Y., 1967), vol. 1, p. 384 (trans. by

15 William Watson, Tang and Liao Ceramics (New York,

Although phoenix-like birds frequently appear on ritual bronzes of the Shang (c. 17th century B.c.—c. 1028 B.C.) and Zhou (c. 1027-221 B.c.) dynasties, the exact identity of those birds remains uncertain, so it is difficult to pinpoint the date of the first appearance of the phoenix 1n the visual arts.

16 Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol.

1984), p. 147, pl. 126.

N

James Legge).

3 The Koreans adopted this image of the striding phoenix late in their Three Kingdoms period (traditionally, $7 B.C.-A.D. 668), imbuing it with a grace and vitality seldom encountered in China. See Chewon Kim and Lena Kim Lee, Arts of Korea (Tokyo, New York, and San FranClsco, 1974), p. 224, no. 196.

4 Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary (London, Shanghai, and Yokohama, 1898), p. 12 (Chang Ch’ien).

5s See Okazaki, Chiigoku kodai, pp. 228, 314, no. 232. 6 See ibid., p. 114, no. 102; Li Zhiyan, “Tan Fan Cui mu

chutu di ciqi” [A Discussion of the Stonewares Recovered from the Tomb

fa. Te

of Fan Cui], Kaogu 5 (1972): 53,

7 See Li Zuozhi, “Sui Tang Shengzhou Yulincheng di

I, pp.

128-9,

no. 209.

3 AMPHORA DRAGON

WITH

DISHED

MOUTH

AND

Two

HANDLES

Tang dynasty, 7th century Light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze over appliqué decoration H. 33.0 cm; Diam.

16.5 cm

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Avery Brundage Collection [B60 P148]

The container portion of this dragon-handled amphora comprises an ovoid jar whose walls spring from the low, solid, platform foot, expand rapidly, and then curve inward to form the bulging shoulder.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

85

A small ndge distinguishes the top of the shoulder

from the base of the tall neck, which rises vertically,

constricting gently at midsection, and then expanding to terminate in the dished mouth with its rolled lip. Diametrically opposed, two double-strand handles arch upward from the shoulder, bow slightly outward, and then curve inward, each terminating in a single dragon head that bites the rim of the mouth. Each dragon has a scrolling crest atop its head and two knob-like ornaments on its spine. While most of each dragon’s head disappears into the dished mouth, the lower jaw of each is visible on the exterior, overlapping the nm and rolled lip. Though it appears black, the glaze is actually dark brown, as revealed by those areas on the handles where it ran thin during firing. Applied in two dippings, the thick glaze covers the exterior of the vessel, falling short of the flat base and the lowest portion of the jar, which are unglazed. The unglazed areas fired a light grayish buff. The jar was turned on the potter’s wheel in sections that were luted together after drying; hand constructed, the dragon handles were applied to the vessel after it had been assembled, but before the glaze was applied.

Termed longbinghu (dragon-handled jars) in Chinese, dragon-handled amphorae of white stoneware with clear or ivory glaze appeared during the Sui dynasty and continued to appear until at least the mideighth century. Like the previous pilgrim flask (no. 2), the dragon-handled amphorae reflect a blending of Chinese and foreign elements. The symmetrical disposition of the jar with its soaring, arched handles derives from Roman glass and metalwork arriving over the Silk Route at that time; the dragon-form handles and dished mouth set atop a slender neck represent the persistence of native taste, which had already accepted the dished mouth in the mid-Han period, and the double-strand dragon handle in the late fourth or early fifth century (compare no. 1). In fourth- and fifth-century examples, the dished mouth is large in proportion to the vessel and has straight sides; in seventh- and eighth-century pieces, the dished mouth is relatively small in relation to the vessel, and has bowed sides and a rolled lip. The bulk of the surviving dragon-handled amphorae are of clear-glazed white stoneware; though not common, dark-glazed amphorae, such as this handsome example, are also known, their styles virtually identical to those in white stoneware. Closely related amphorae also occur amongst the lead-glazed earthenwares of the period, including both monochrome and sancai, or three-color, examples. Though they have not yet been located, the kilns that manufactured the high-fired, clear-glazed and

86

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

brown-glazed amphorae are assumed to be in the north—1in Hebei and Henan provinces—since most surviving examples of attested provenance have come from tombs in that area. While excavations have shown that such amphorae date to the seventh and eighth centuries, the hard archaeological evidence needed to establish a firm chronology has not yet become available, so dates are, by necessity, assigned on the basis of inference; those pieces with slender,

sometimes attenuated, bodies and relatively simple dragons are given to the seventh century, while those with more robust bodies and more complex dragons are assigned to the eighth. Except for their dorsal knobs and furled crests, the simple dragons of pieces assumed to be from the seventh century differ little from their fifth-century ancestors. By contrast, the more complex dragons associated with amphorae thought to be from the eighth century are usually portrayed in more detail (at least their heads are), and they not only curve outward more dramatically, but arch much higher above the dished mouth. Assumed to be from the first third of the eighth century, a dark-glazed amphora excavated from a tomb dated to 738 in Haobi, Henan province, has an ovoid body set on a well-defined and slightly flaring base; its long neck has three raised bowstring lines about its waist

) 1995 by The Denver Art Museum.

and its dished mouth 1s much deeper than that of the present example. Moreover, the dragons are depicted as newt-like creatures, each with two pairs of legs, an elaborately rendered head, and a long, curving tail that enlivens the surface of the container.* Thus the scant archaeological evidence that has come to light suggests that the working hypothesis currently employed in dating these amphorae is not too far off base, even if it does not wholly confirm it. PUBLISHED: René-Yvon Lefebvre d’Argencé, Chinese Ceramics in The Avery Brundage Collection (San Francisco, 1967), pp. 44-45, pl. 17, fig. C; Robin Hopper, Functional Pottery: Form and Aesthetic in Pots of Purpose (Radnor, Penn., 1986),

Photograph copyright All rights reserved.

ao ~

p. Tis:

1 See Wang Wenqiang and Huo Baocheng, “Haobi shi faxian yizuo Tangdai muzang” [The Discovery of a Tang-Dynasty Tomb in Haobi], Zhongyuan wenwu 2 (1988): 33, fig. 2, no. 9 and pl. 4, no. 3.

4 COMPRESSED

GLOBULAR JAR WITH

FLARING

AND

LIP

THREE

CLAWED

FEET

Tang dynasty, 8th—9th century Light gray stoneware with appliqué molded feet and with dark brown glaze F.. T6:0:eme Dian,

21.5 cm

Denver Art Museum, Loan from the Sze Hong Collection (K-629) [100.1989]

This sturdy jar has a rounded, bowl-shaped lower portion. At the indented bowstring line demarcating the shoulder, the walls turn inward then angle upward to the short, vertical neck that turns delicately outward. The vessel stands on three short, evenly spaced, leonine legs, each with toes and claws at the bottom and with ridges on the shaft to suggest tensed muscles and tendons. Apart from its legs and the incised bowstring line at the shoulder, the jar 1s unornamented. The underside of the bowl-like lower portion is lightly indented. A dark olive brown glaze covers the vessel inside and out, excepting only the indented bottom and a narrow band surrounding it. The unglazed portion fired a light grayish buff. The jar was turned on the potter’s wheel in sections that were luted together after drying; the molded leonine legs were applied to the vessel after it had been assembled, but before it was glazed. The glaze was applied in several dippings, as indicated by the linked parabola shapes that comprise its lower edge. The vessel was fired right side up, the bottom of its bowl-

like container resting either on tall spurs or, more likely, on a pointil, allowing the glaze to coat even the bottoms of the leonine feet. Several smudges, or fingerprints, interrupt the lower glaze edge, revealing the manner in which the potter held the vessel after applying the glaze. Although tripod jars number among the quintessential Tang ceramic forms, little is known about their exact function, scholars even disagreeing over their proper name; most scholars term them fu (cooking or heating vessels), for example, while others refer to them as sanzu lu, or three-legged censers. The majority of such vessels are made of the leadglazed earthenware that was popular for funerary items during the Tang dynasty, with only the rare piece occurring in high-fired celadon- or dark-glazed stoneware. A few earthenware examples have survived with covers—which are flat with a small budshaped knob at the center and with a short flange on the underside to secure the cover in place—but too few remain for us to know whether all such vessels originally sported covers, or only the select few.’ Curious as they may at first appear, animal-legged vessels have a long history in China. Some ceramic vessels were already being shaped in the form of animals during the Neolithic period, as some ritual vessels were given animal forms during the Shang dynasty. During the Zhou dynasty, many ritual bronze vessels were cast with drumstick-shaped legs that terminated in a circular, padlike foot resembling a hoof. Such cabriole legs persisted into the Warring States and Han periods, when the repertory was expanded

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

87

pp. 79-80, no. 14; Schuyler Cammann, “The Lion and Grape Patterns on Chinese Bronze Mirrors,” Artibus Asiae 16 (1953): 265-01.

Nn

WN

4 See Yutaka Mino, Pre-Sung Dynasty Chinese Stonewares in the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, 1974), p. 87, no. 69.

a small flat dish with incurving mouth, to which

were added a rudimentary head, tail, and four vestigial legs,* perhaps a precursor of the three-legged jars of the Tang. With the growing interest in the lion as a noble and auspicious beast, and thus as a motif appropriate for the decorative arts, in the Six Dynasties and Tang periods, it is only natural that leonine feet should have supplanted the human- and animal-form legs of earlier periods in both metalwork and ceramic

ware.°

Dark brown-glazed tripod vessels may have a fully convex profile, like the present example, or they may have a profile that 1s delicately indented at the waist, like the related jars in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto,* and in the Tokyo National Museum.> All such jars are fully glazed inside and out, except for the underside of the container portion. In this case, as in some others, the excess glaze that

pooled on the bottoms of the feet during firing was filed to even the legs so the jar would stand level. Spur marks interrupting the glaze on the interior floor indicate that another, smaller vessel was fired

inside this jar to take maximum advantage of the kiln space. Since the kilns that produced vessels of this type have not yet been discovered, and since related tripod vessels in lead-glazed earthenware have been excavated from tombs of both the eighth and ninth centuries, it is assumed that such brown-glazed three-legged vessels were produced in both centuries, distinctions between jars of the two periods apparently being very slight.° The very similar jar in the Meiyintang Collection bears the same attribution as this piece.’ t See Watson,

2

Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 143, pl. 122.

See Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware, pp. 33-34, nos. 60—66.

3 For discussions of the lion in early Chinese art, see Robert D. Mowry, China’s Renaissance in Bronze: The Robert H. Clague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes, 1100— 1900, exh. cat., Phoenix Art Museum

88

(Phoenix, 1993),

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

See Sat6 and Hasebe, Zui To, p. 117, no. 96.

For a sancai lead-glazed earthenware censer excavated

from a mid-ninth-century tomb, see Yangzhou shi bowuguan [Yangzhou Municipal Museum], “Yangzhou faxian liangzuo Tang mu” [The Discovery of Two Tang Tombs at Yangzhou], Wenwu 5 (1973): 71, fig. 4. ~

to include legs in the form of standing or crouching humans and animals, the legs on any given vessel designed in identical, matching sets. Although they began to break away from the dominance of the bronze tradition in the Six Dynasties period, potters nevertheless retained selected elements from that tradition in their stock of forms, including animal-shaped legs. With their growing independence, Six Dynasties-period potters began to experiment with new vessel types, sometimes fashioned wholly in the form of animals. Most notable in this context are the water coupes for the scholar’s desk that frequently comprise

See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, p. 129, no. 210.

5 Ovoip JAR WITH

Loop

HANDLES

Two

DOUBLE-STRANDED

Tang dynasty, 8th—oth century Light gray stoneware with appliqué handles and dark brown glaze H. 21.6 cm; Diam.

20.3 cm

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Avery Brundage Collection [B60 P138]

This well-proportioned jar stands on a small, solid, vertical foot from which the walls spring, then expand rapidly to form the broad shoulder, where they curve inward, angling gracefully up to the short neck with its out-turned lip. Two small upright handles, each composed of a strand of clay looped back on itself, appear at the top of the shoulder, one on either side of the neck. The walls are relatively thin, with the result that the jar is light in weight. The lustrous dark brown glaze covers the pot inside and out, stopping short of the foot, which is unglazed. The unglazed portions fired a light gray. The jar was turned on the potter’s wheel in sections that were luted together after drying; the hand-constructed handles were applied after the jar had been assembled, but before the glaze was applied. The glaze was applied in two dippings, as indicated by the two parabola shapes that define its lower edge. Such jars are called guan in Chinese, a term that denotes a broad-shouldered storage jar with a short neck; guan jars are distinguished from hu storage jars, which have a more globular body and a longer neck. Short-necked guan of this type from the Tang dynasty are often termed wannian guan, or “tenthousand-year jars.” Although a variety of guan-type jars were made during the Six Dynasties period—some of elliptical

all, and they typically rest on a small, solid foot. Save the occasional appliqué ornament, Tang-dynasty dark-glazed vessels are usually undecorated, relying on tautness of form and beauty of glaze for aesthetic

appeal. The two looped strands at the shoulder of

this jar enliven its shape, for example, though they are too frail to have functioned as handles; perhaps they once anchored a cord that secured a cover or perhaps they served simply to ornament the otherwise rather austere form. Tang potters perfected the black glaze—really a dark brown glaze that appears black; in the best examples, such as this jar, the glaze is even, deep, and

form, others of ovoid, broad-shouldered form, some with short vertical necks, others without necks—the

distinctive type represented here with its robust proportions and small curving neck came into being only in Tang times. Many such jars boast covers— slightly domed with a flat lip, bud-shaped knob, and vertical flange on the underside—though it remains unknown whether or not all were originally so furnished (compare no. 11). While guan jars are most numerous in lead-glazed earthenware, they also occur with some frequency in white stoneware and porcelain and in a range of dark-glazed stonewares. They rarely occur amongst the celadon-glazed wares, however, a situation having less to do with

glaze type, per se, than with location of manufacture. The brown, black, and white wares were produced mainly in the north, in Hebei and Henan provinces, in Tang times, and the finest celadons were produced farther to the south, in Zhejiang province. The highfired brown, black, and white pieces were probably made for use by the living, though they were placed in tombs on occasion, while the low-fired lead-

glazed examples were most likely made expressly for burial. Robust and exuberant, Tang ceramics tend to be full and round, emphasizing geometry of form above

lustrous, approximating the finest lacquer of the day. Among many northern wares, including both leadglazed earthenwares and dark-glazed stonewares, the base and lowest portion are unglazed. While some have described this as solely an aesthetic feature, it is actually a practice employed to increase kiln efhciency: by leaving the lowest portions of a vessel unglazed, the melting glaze would not run off the base in firing, fusing the piece to the kiln furniture, thus resulting in damage or possible loss. (The clearand celadon-glazed stonewares were not only the most preferred ceramic wares during the Tang, but also the most expensive; more time and energy were thus expended on finishing them, with the glaze applied to the entire piece except for the bottom of the foot. Fortunately for the potters, the clear and celadon glazes were more stable and less fluid than the dark glazes, and thus more readily controllable.) Produced largely in the north during the Tang dynasty, dark-glazed stonewares have traditionally been attributed to kilns at Jianci village, in Quyang, Hebei province, for example, or to ones in Ji, Yu, Mi, and Lushan counties in Henan province. While its kiln cannot yet be identified, this refined jar was no doubt made at a kiln in Henan or Hebei province.

Guan jars of this type have been recovered in quantity from both eighth- and ninth-century tombs. Strongly ovoid jars such as this one, that are relatively tall in proportion to their girth, and that have a well-defined foot that 1s approximately the same diameter as the mouth but that is small in relation to the shoulder, are traditionally assigned to the ninth century. A late-eighth-century date, however, 1s not impossible. PUBLISHED: d’Argencé, Chinese Ceramics in The Avery Brundage Collection, pp. 46-47, fig. B. 1 Fora rare Yue celadon example, see Satd and Hasebe, Zui TO, p. 108, no. 85.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

89

hot water into individual tea bowls, where it would

6 Ovoip AND

EWER

WITH

SHORT

DOUBLE-STRAND

SPOUT

HANDLE

Tang dynasty, 8th—oth century Huangpu tea-dust-glazed ware: light gray stoneware with speckled golden brown glaze From the Huangpu kiln, Tongchuan, Yaozhou county, Shaanxi province H. 22.1 cm; Diam.

15.5 cm

Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr.

[17]

This sturdy ewer has an ovoid body that rests on a small, solid, slightly flaring foot. The steep walls rise rapidly to the shoulder, where they curve inward and then angle upward to complete the container portion. A bowed neck of medium height stands atop the shoulder, its thickened lip turned delicately outward. A short, straight, slightly conical spout juts upward from the top of the shoulder; opposing the spout, a handle of joined double strands arcs between shoulder and lip, its height not exceeding that of the lip. Subtle modeling at the handle’s upper end and a tiny raised dot suggesting an eye on either side indicate that the handle is still to be interpreted as a dragon, if a now wholly domesticated one. A thin coat of brown glaze covers the ewer’s interior, while

a thicker coat of golden brown tea-dust glaze covers its exterior, stopping roughly one inch above the foot, so that the flat base and the lowest portion of the vessel remain unglazed. The exposed body clay fired a light oatmeal color. The jar was turned on the potter’s wheel in sections that were luted together after drying; the hand-constructed spout and handle were applied after the ewer had been assembled, but before the glaze was applied. Usually termed zhuzi, zhuhu, or shuizhu in Chinese (all three terms meaning “ewer’’), such roundor ovoid-bodied ewers with constricted neck and lightly flaring mouth are also occasionally called zhihu, or “handled hu,” a reference to the basic hu

jar shape. Such ewers made their debut in the Sui dynasty, supplanting the chicken-headed ewer and its descendants. The container portion of the ewer mirrors the form of the ovoid guan jar (no. 5), attesting to their parallel development. The ovoid ewer and its well-turned foot also find parallels in Tang silver, the related silver ewers almost certainly serving as models for the more humble ceramic pieces.’ At least some ewers of this shape were used in preparing tea, which by Tang times was enjoyed as a beverage rather than endured as a medicine. The ewers were used not as pots for steeping tea, but as pitchers for dispensing

90

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

be whisked together with dried, powdered tea leaves, in a manner preserved to this day in the Japanese tea ceremony.” The so-called tea-dust glaze made its appearance in the seventh century, during the Tang dynasty.° Golden brown, as in this case, or sometimes greenish

brown, the tea-dust glaze is opaque and semilustrous. It includes crystals of both iron and lime silicates that form during firing and impart the speckled, even metallic, effect that is one of the pleasing, and defining, features of the glaze. The tea-dust glaze is a close relative of the dark brown glaze; in fact, it is a variant

of that glaze, kiln temperature and firing time determining which glaze emerges from the kiln. As contemporary potters have demonstrated, most Tang- and Song-type dark glazes pass through a teadust phase as they fire; if underfired—that 1s, if the kiln temperature is not quite high enough or if the appropriate temperature is not maintained for a

sufficient length of time—the glaze will mature a tea-dust color rather than dark brown.* Deriving from the Chinese term chayemo, the name “tea dust” likens the glaze’s color and speckled effect to the appearance of the dried, powdered tea that was used in Tang and Song times. As noted in the previous entry (no. 5), darkglazed stonewares were produced largely in the north during the Tang dynasty, and have traditionally been attributed to the Henan and Hebei areas. However,

the discovery in 1972 of a black-glazed stupa-shaped vessel, doubtless a Buddhist reliquary, in the Tang stratum of the kiln site at Huangpu? in Tongchuan, proved that dark-glazed wares were being produced as far west as Shaanxi province in Tang times.° Huangpu was one of three ancient kiln sites in the county known since Song times (960-1279) as Yaozhou. Subsequent excavations have revealed both that the main output of the Huangpu kiln was brown-, black-, and tea-dust-glazed ware, and that

the Yaozhou kilns, later famed in the Song dynasty for their celadon-glazed stonewares, continued the Huangpu tradition, producing significant quantities of dark-glazed ware.’ Because the Yaozhou kilns evolved from the Huangpu kiln, Tang wares from Huangpu are sometimes termed “Yaozhou wares,” even though the county was officially named Yaozhou only in the Song. This ewer’s striking similarity to tea-dust-glazed pieces excavated at the Huangpu kiln site permits its attribution to that kiln. With its ovoid body, short flaring neck, double-strand handle, short spout, and tea-dust glaze, the ewer is virtually identical to those excavated at Huangpu.* Most significantly, the glaze

ends in a very straight lower edge about one inch above the slightly flaring foot, a characteristic feature of dark-glazed vessels produced at Huangpu. By contrast, most other Tang ceramics with unglazed lower portions have irregular glaze edges, often a series of parabolas (compare no. $), the result of dipping the vessel into the glaze solution two or three times. The robust proportions and the tall, fully ovoid form signal this ewer’s eighth- to ninth-century date of manufacture, as do the short handle, the well-

defined and lightly flaring foot, and the small spout set high atop the shoulder. The incorporation of a schematized dragon’s head into the design of the

handle links the ewer to its Six Dynasties and earlyTang forebears (compare nos. 1 and 3); the reduction of the dragon head to a vestigial and easily overlooked appendage, however, not only signals the waning of interest in animal-form ornaments, but heralds the arrival of an age that would prize subtle refinement over bold statement. PROVENANCE: Edward T. Chow Collection 1 See Zhenjiang shi bowuguan and Shaanxi sheng bowuguan [Zhenjiang Municipal Museum and Shaanxi Provincial Museum],

Tangdai jinyingi [Gold and Silver

Objects of the Tang Dynasty] (Beijing, 1985), p. 184, no.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

91

203; Dantu xian wenjiaoju and Zhenjiang bowuguan [Dantu County Bureau of Culture and Education and Zhenjiang Museum], “Jiangsu Dantu Dingmaoqiao chutu Tangdai yinqi jiaocang” [A Cache of Tang-Dynasty Silver Unearthed near Dingmaogiao, Dantu County, Jiangsu Province], Wenwu 11 (1982): 26, fig. 35. Han Wei, “Cong yincha fengshang kan Famensi dengdi chutu di Tangdai jinyin chaju” [A Look at the Gold and Silver Tea Utensils from Famensi and Related Sites on the Basis of Tea-Drinking Customs],

LA

ne

tn

49-50.

Wenwu

10 (1988):

Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo [Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology], Tangdai Huangpu yaozhi [The Tang-Dynasty Kiln Site at Huangpu] (Beying, 1992), vol. i, bp. $15. Oriental Ceramic Society, Iron in the Fire, p. 27, no. 27.

Although it is usually read bao, the second character in this proper noun is read pu in certain place names, as 1n

Nn

this one. The site name thus is correctly transliterated as Huangpu rather than Huangbao, as it has been rendered in some recent English-language publications. Li Zhiyan and Zhu Jieyuan, “Tang baiyou tiehua bo, baici tuoyu he heiyou guan” [A Tang White-Glazed Bowl with Appliqué Decoration, a White Porcelain Cuspidor, and a Black-Glazed Jar], Wenwu

1 (1979): 69 and

pl. 11, no. 3. For an illustration of the black-glazed jar, see Watson, Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 76, pl. 47.

Zhuo Zhenxi and Lu Jianguo, “Yaozhouyao yizhi diaocha fajue xin shouhuo” [New Results in the Investigation and Excavation of the Yaozhou Kiln Site], Kaogu yu wenwu 3 (1980): 54-62; Xie Dongxing, Ren Chao,

faxian” [New Discoveries during Construction at the Yaozhou Kiln Site], Kaogu yu wenwu 5 (1987): 34-45;

Zhuo Zhenxi, “Yaozhouyao Tang Wudai taoci gailun” [An Overview of the Tang and Five Dynasties Ceramics

from the Yaozhou Kilns], Kaogu yu wenwu 5 (1988):

Co

147-55 and 161; Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Tangdai Huangpu yaozhi; Feng Xianming, “Xin Zhongguo taoci kaogu di zhuyao shouhuo” [The Principal Achievements of Ceramic Archaeology in New China], Wenwu 9 (1965): 32; Feng Xianming, “Sanshinian lai woguo taoci kaogu di shouhuo,” p. 16. See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Tangdai Huangpu yaozhi, vol. 1, pp. 182, fig. 95, and 515, fig. 284 (C), and vol. 2, pl. 74, nos. 1 and 2; Xie, Ren, and Liu,

fig. 1, no. 25, and p. 36; Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo [Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology], Shaanxi Tongchuan Yaozhouyao |The Yaozhou Kilns at Tongchuan, Shaanxi], Zhongguo tianye kaogu baogao ji [Chinese Field Archaeology Reports] series, Archaeology monograph no. 16 (Beying, 1965), p. 14, fig. 9, no. 17, and pl. 8, no. 1.

g2

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

7 Tuoyu

CuSPIDOR

Tang dynasty, 9th century Huangpu black-glazed ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze and with traces of a brush-written inscription, dated to either 835 or 855, on the base From the Huangpu

kiln, Tongchuan, Yaozhou

H.. fr.

1.6m

Shaanxi province my

Dian.

The Asia Society, New

county,

York, Mr. and Mrs. John D.

Rockefeller 3rd Collection

[1979.129]|

This cuspidor comprises a container below and a wide, flaring mouth above, the two integral parts linked by a short, cylindrical neck. The receptacle portion is triangular in shape; its walls bulge outward from the wide, solid, vertical foot, then immediately turn inward and angle upward to the short neck. Springing from the neck, the trumpet mouth has delicately curved walls that echo the container’s graceful lines. A dark brown glaze coats the vessel, appearing lighter where it thins at the rim. The unglazed foot and base fired a light gray. The trumpet mouth was turned on the wheel, in the manner of a bow]; the

remainder of the cuspidor was turned on the wheel as well, but in sections that were luted together with the trumpet mouth after the pieces had dried, but before the glaze was applied. Traces of an inscription written in ink with a brush after firing remain on the base. Known in Chinese as tuoyu, or alternatively as tuohu—the two terms meaning “spittoon,” or “cuspidor” —vessels of this shape were popular during the Tang and Song periods. Despite the name, it remains uncertain whether or not such vessels were actually used as spittoons; some maintain that they served more as waste receptacles into which the dregs from a cup of tea or wine could be deposited before a fresh cup was poured. Though it has been suggested that the cuspidor evolved under foreign influence, inspired by glass and metalwork examples that reached China via the Silk Route, the record is

very unclear on the origin of the shape.’ Chinese scholars, and some Western ones as well, favor a

Chinese origin for the cuspidor, seeing it as one of several logical successors to the dish-mouthed jars of the Six Dynasties period, particularly fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-century pieces from the Yue kilns.* In strictly visual terms, several of those jars do indeed seem to anticipate the Tang cuspidor, but without hard evidence, the similarity of form could be mere coincidence.* Whatever its origins, the cuspidor was

Photo: Lynton Gardiner

occasionally fashioned in silver, and it was doubtless examples in that precious metal that served as immediate prototypes for the ceramic versions.* An early manifestation of the shape had entered the repertory of the Chinese potter by the second half of the seventh century, with the narrow-waisted variety evolving a century later. By the late eighth and ninth centuries, cuspidors were available in a range of wares, including porcelain and white stoneware with clear glaze, as well as light gray stoneware with celadon, brown, black, and tea-dust glazes. Like the previous ovoid ewer (no. 6), this cuspi-

dor has an even and very regular glaze line at the bottom of its container, just above the foot, suggesting that it was produced at the Huangpu kiln. In fact, archaeologists have recovered cuspidors from every Tang stratum of the Huangpu kiln site; those from the seventh century resemble small jars with steep, angled lips, while those from the eighth century as-

sume the familiar cuspidor shape with its rounded container and flaring lip connected by a narrow neck. Although it becomes increasingly wide in

relation to the container throughout the seventh and eighth centuries, the flaring mouth retains its very straight sides until the ninth century, when it takes on the rounded,

trumpet-mouthed

profile seen in

this example.* As the mouth becomes more bowl-

like in the ninth century, the neck becomes increasingly attenuated and the container becomes more triangular,° moving away from the compressed spherical form typical both of earlier Huangpu examples and of examples made at most other kilns during the Tang and Five Dynasties periods.’ A related cuspidor appears in the Meiyintang Collection.° The underside of this cuspidor boasts traces of a brush-written inscription that apparently records the cuspidor’s date of purchase. Now too abraded to be read with certainty, the inscription includes a date that would seem to correspond to either 835 or 855;

since the style of the calligraphy is appropriate for the period and since the mid-ninth-century date accords with that suggested by the archaeological evidence, the inscription gives every indication of being authentic. Seemingly reading either Taihe jiunian

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

93

7 For other ceramic cuspidors, see Mino and Tsiang, Ice and CO

Green Clouds, pp. 122-3, no. 44.

See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, p. 126, no. 207.

\O

sanyue [?] ri bao or Dazhong jiunian sanyue [?] ri bao, the inscription would translate, respectively, ““Treasured on the [?| day of the third month of the ninth year of Taihe” [835], or “Treasured on the [?] day of the third month of the ninth year of Dazhong” [855].? PROVENANCE: Sir Herbert Ingram Collection; Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection

For an illustration of the base and its inscription and for my suggestion of other possible readings of the inscription, see Robert D. Mowry, “The Sophistication of Song Dynasty Ceramics,” Apollo vol. 118, n.s. no. 261 (1983): 399-401, figs. g—-II.

PUBLISHED: William Willetts, Foundations of Chinese Art (New York, Toronto, and London, 1965), pp. 273 and 286, no. 182; Sherman E. Lee, Asian Art: Selections from the Collec-

tion of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd, Part II, exh. cat.,

The Asia Society (New York, 1975), pp. 48 and 97, no. 31;

Robert D. Mowry, Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D.

Rockefeller 3rd Collection (New York, 1981), p. 61; Robert D.

Mowry, “The Sophistication of Song Dynasty Ceramics,” Apollo vol. 118, n.s. no. 261 (1983): 399-401, figs. 9-11;

Denise Patry Leidy, Treasures of Asian Art: The Asia Society’s Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection (New York,

1994), Pp- 139, 303, fig. 131.

1 Traditionally said to be of Persian origin, a cobalt blue glass cuspidor in the Sh6s6-in, an imperial repository that was sealed in 756, at T6dai-ji in Nara, Japan, is often cited as an example of a type that might have inspired the

Chinese cuspidor question has been not be a

cuspidor. Most scholars now believe the glass to be of Chinese manufacture; yet other scholars the seventh- to early-eighth-century date that proposed for the cuspidor, wondering if it might Song-dynasty piece and thus a later interpolation

into the Shds6-in. While they cannot be solved here, the problems surrounding the origins of this glass cuspidor

are mentioned to illustrate how difficult interpretation of the evidence can be. For an illustration of the glass cuspidor, see Sh6s6-in jimusho [Shdsd-in Office], Shdsd-in no garasu [Glass Objects in the Shésd-in] (Tokyo, 1965),

Oo

N

color pl. 4 and monochrome pls. 39-41. See Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware, p. 27-28, nos. 33—39. See ibid., p. 28, no. 40; Mino and Tsiang, Ice and Green Clouds, pp. 96-97, no. 33, and 106-7, no. 37.

4 For Tang silver cuspidors, see Zhenjiang shi bowuguan and Shaanxi sheng bowuguan, Tangdai jinyingi, pp. 188, 190, nos. 255, 278; Bo Gyllensvard, Chinese Gold and Sil-

LA

ver in the Carl Kempe Collection (Stockholm, 1953), pp. 172-3, 00, 114,

For related examples excavated at the Huangpu kiln site, see Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Tangdai Huangpu yaozhi, vol. 1, pp. 172, fig. 91, and $20, fig. 284(H); Xie,

nN

faxtan,. ‘pp. 34-35, fig. I,.no.. TO,

94

Recently excavated in Xi’an, a silver cuspidor shares a similar profile, with its flaring, bowl-like mouth and somewhat triangular body; see Zhenjiang shi bowuguan and Shaanxi sheng bowuguan, Tangdai jinyingi, p. 188, NG; 255,

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

8 LARGE STRAND

OVOID

JAR

HANDLES

WITH AND

FOUR WITH

DOUBLEBLUE

SPLASHES

Tang dynasty, 8th—o9th century Lushan ware: light gray stoneware with appliqué handles and dark brown glaze with variegated light blue suftusions From the Duandian kiln, Lushan county, Henan province H. 39.4 cm; Diam.

33.7 cm

Collection of The Newark Museum, Jaehne Collection I94I [41.2107]

This tall guan jar stands on a small, solid, circular foot with a chamfered, or beveled, edge. The walls rise steeply from the base to the bulging shoulder, where they curve inward and then rise upward to the short neck, also with a beveled edge. The mouth 1s slightly

wider in diameter than the foot. Four evenly spaced

handles, each formed of a single strand of clay looped back on itself, appear around the top of the shoulder, at the base of the collar-like neck. A semuilustrous,

opaque, dark brown glaze covers the jar inside and out, stopping about four inches above the foot on the exterior. Applied in two registers, twelve milky blue splashes, each a broad arc with a long tail sweeping diagonally downward from the lower left, contrast with the dark brown glaze, enlivening the surface. The exposed body clay at the bottom of the vessel fired an oatmeal color, as did that at the top of the neck. The jar was turned on the potter’s wheel in sections that were luted together after drying; the hand-constructed handles were pressed into place after the jar had been assembled, but before the glaze

was applied. The glaze was applied in several dippings, as indicated by its very irregular lower edge. The blue splashes were clearly laid on with a brush over the brown glaze before firing. The jar was fired right side up. The robust form and small solid foot place this jar firmly in the Tang dynasty, as do its double-strand loop handles and unglazed lower portion. The dark

Pate

epee See ane

ees SoC Pe Based =

7

Rv

fa

et —

ed C

’

eramics

9

wy

;

Ch Ines e Brown- and Black-Gla

brown glaze bespeaks its northern origins, while the milky blue splashes associate it with a group of similarly decorated pieces, all of which have until recently been termed “Huangdao ware,” after the Huangdao kilns in Henan province, which did indeed produce some splashed wares of this type. The Duandian kiln in Lushan county (in southwestern Henan province) had been known since

1950, but had been assumed to be part of the Cizhou

family of kilns because it produced Cizhou-type wares in the Song, Jin, and Yuan periods. The Duandian kiln soared to fame in the late 1970s, when a series of excavations revealed that during the Tang dynasty the kiln had made fine quality, blue-splashed, brown-glazed wares. In fact, the Tang author Nan Zhuo had commented on the excellent drum cores of mottled stoneware’ produced in Lushan in his Jiegulu—a treatise on drums written between 848 and 850—revealing that Lushan had been linked with fine ceramic ware since the mid-ninth century, at least in the literary record.* The meaning of the literary reference had been lost until the discovery of sherds of such hourglass-shaped drum cores (called yaogu, or “waisted drums,” in Chinese), since history had forgotten the existence of a kiln at Duandian in Tang times. If the Duandian kiln in Lushan county produced fine blue-splashed, brown-glazed wares, the Xiabaiyu kiln in Yu county and the previously mentioned Huangdao kiln in Jia county—both in central Henan province, not far removed from Lushan—made similar wares, usually said to be less distinguished than those of Lushan. The lack of mention in Tang literature suggests that the kilns in Yu and Jia counties did not enjoy the same fame and high reputation as the Duandian kiln in Lushan, whatever the quality of their wares; since the Xiabaiyu kiln in Yu county also produced the mottled drum cores for which Lushan was famous,* however, it may be that people of the day did not differentiate between the related wares of various kilns, thus mistakenly giving all credit to Lushan. While the Duandian kiln site has been thoroughly excavated, the Xiabairyu and Huangdao kilns have been less extensively investigated—or, at least less extensively published—so that attribution of a given piece to a specific kiln is not always possible. Sherds excavated at Lushan indicate that pieces from the Duandian kiln have thick, opaque brown glazes, their bluish white suffusions of well-defined shape, with crisp edges.° Regina Krahl states that pieces from the Huangdao kiln often have thinner, more translucent, brown glazes and that their suftusions tend to be streaked and irregularly shaped, with fuzzy edges.° The little evidence available concerning

96

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

pieces from Yu county suggests that they are very similar to those from Lushan. Although they have established that ceramic production continued there through the Song and Jin dynasties and into the Yuan, archaeologists have not yet determined the earliest date of activity at the Duandian kiln. Since Nan Zhuo wrote his Jiegulu between 848 and 850, his mention of Lushan drum

cores indicates that the Duandian kilns were thriving in the mid-ninth century, suggesting that they had already passed through a period of experimentation and development. Without hard stratigraphic evidence to establish periods of activity, scholars look to the ceramics themselves, comparing them stylistically with other, more securely dated wares in their attempts to assign dates. Although most scholars believe the bulk of the Lushan-type wares were made in the eighth and ninth centuries, a few scholars have advanced seventh-century dates for selected pieces; until archaeologically attested evidence appears, all such dating will remain in the realm of informed speculation. Perhaps the finest blue-splashed, brown-glazed example in the West, the Newark Museum jar must have been made at the Duandian kiln, given its thick brown glaze and its hard-edged, well-defined bluish white suffusions. The regular spacing of the splashes is an additional feature of some Lushan wares, as is

the repetition of splash shape and the preference

for tails. The low-set shoulder, the short but well-

defined neck, and the double-strand handles suggest an eighth- to ninth-century date for the jar. A related guan jar appears in the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago (1985.113).

Observers have long speculated on the method used to achieve the blue splashes. In the ninth century, Nan Zhuo commented that the Lushan drum cores were decorated using powdered stone.’ In the twentieth century, the blue splashes have often been described as discontinuous applications of a second, phosphatic glaze on the surface of the brown glaze. In fact, many scholars and contemporary potters now believe the splashes likely resulted from the application of pure wood ash to the surface of the brown glaze before firing.” The splashes seem usually to have been painted with a brush, and distinct brushstrokes are visible within the splashes on this jar. In a few cases, though not in this one, the vessels appear to have been upside down when the splashes were applied. The top of the lip was left unglazed (as was that of the related jar in Chicago), most likely so that another vessel could be set there in the firing chamber to achieve maximum kiln efficiency, utilizing space and fuel to the fullest. If this portion had been left

unglazed to accommodate a cover during firing, the inside of the ip would most likely have been left unglazed as well, so that the cover’s downward projecting flange would not fuse to the inside of the neck. (This does not discount the possibility that the Newark Museum jar originally had a cover; if it did, the cover was probably fired separately, standing on

and Research on Tang and Song Stoneware and Porce-

lain Kilns in Henan], Zhongyuan wenwu 4 (1990): 11-12; Wang Liying, “Gugong bowuyuan cang heiyou lanban

yaogu he Yuan lanyou miaojin yi” [A Tang, BlueSplashed, Black-Glazed Waisted Drum and a Yuan, Blue-Glazed Yi Pouring Bowl with Fine-Line Gold Decoration in the Collection of the Palace Museum], Wenwu

its unglazed flange.) The Newark jar was fired right

side up, as indicated by the thickened lower edges of the blue splashes; by contrast, some vessels have

is

the kiln in a manner that would allow the firing chamber to be filled to capacity. Although potters at the Yue kilns had experimented with small, carefully placed, russet dots of iron oxide on their celadon-glazed wares during the

wares, Lushan ceramics were far more important

than history has so far acknowledged.

PUBLISHED: Valrae Reynolds, “2000 Years of Chinese Ceramics,” The Newark Museum Quarterly, vol. 28, nos. 3-4 (Summer/Fall 1977): front cover and inside front cover, no. 15; Yen Fen Pei and Valrae Reynolds, “Chinese Ceramics in The Newark Museum, Part 1: Han to Liao,” Oriental Art, n.s. vol. 23, no. 3 (Autumn 1977): 311-13, 315, fig. 9; Valrae

Reynolds and Yen Fen Pei, Chinese Art from The Newark Museum, exh. cat., China House Gallery, China Institute in America (New York, 1980), p. 30, no. 12; Margaret Medley, T°ang Pottery and Porcelain (London and Boston,

and pl. L (opposite p. 96).

1981), 72

1 Nan Zhuo used the phrase Lushan huaci, which is often mistakenly translated as “the flowery porcelain of Lushan,” its literal meaning; the correct, idiomatic translation is “the mottled stoneware of Lushan” or “‘the decorated stoneware of Lushan.”

2 Li Huibing and Li Zhiyan, “Henan Lushan Duandian yao” [The Duandian Kiln in Lushan, Henan Province], Wenwu

§ (1980): 58; Feng, “Sanshinian lai woguo taoci

kaogu di shouhuo,” p. 20; Wang Xiao, “Henan Tang Song ciyao yizhi di faxian yu yanjiu” [The Discovery of

94.

Wang, “Gugong bowuyuan cang hetyou lanban yaogu he Yuan lanyou miaojin yi,” p. 94.

s See Li and Li, “Henan Lushan Duandian yao,” p. $3, fig. 2; Fung Ping Shan Museum, Exhibition of Ceramic Finds

from Ancient Kilns in China, exh. cat., Fung Ping Shan Museum, University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1981), pp. 116, 119, nos. 403-4.

fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, the large and some-

6 Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, p. 126.

7 Wang, “Gugong bowuyuan cang heiyou lanban yaogu he Yuan lanyou miaojin yi,” p. 94. CO

times irregular blue splashes seen on the Lushan family of wares are a feature new to high-fired ceramics of the Tang dynasty. The idea of splashed, or multicolored, wares might have been borrowed from the sancai tradition of lead-glazed earthenwares, or it might have been discovered through a firing accident at the kiln and then exploited for its decorative effect. Many believe that the splashed wares from Lushan are the visual forerunners of the betterknown splashed wares of the Song dynasty, from the purple-splashed Jun ware to the russet-splashed black-glazed wares of the Cizhou family. If they did indeed play a role in the development of such Song

(1978):

Beying, see Sato and Hasebe, Zui Td, p. 118, no. 97.

splashes with thickened upper edges, revealing that

they were fired upside down, a function of stacking

11

3 For an example of such a Duandian ware drum core from Lushan in the collection of the Palace Museum,

Oriental Ceramic Society, Iron in the Fire, p. 39, no. 16.

9 CALABASH-SHAPED WITH

BLUE

BOTTLE

SPLASHES

Tang dynasty, 8th—oth century Lushan ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze with variegated light blue splashes From the Duandian kiln, Lushan county, Henan province Fi. 22.4 cme Dian.

18.0 er

The Scheinman Collection

[59]

Almost spherical in shape, the lower, container portion of this gourd-shaped bottle rests on a small, solid, circular foot with vertical walls and a lightly chamfered edge. Sitting atop a short, narrow neck, the vessel’s cupped mouth resembles a small alms bowl with incurved lip. A thick, semilustrous dark brown glaze covers the bottle inside and out, extending over the full exterior of the globular container, excepting only the foot itself. Light blue in color, several variegated and relatively thick splashes appear on the shoulder. The bottle was turned on the potter’s wheel in sections that were luted together after drying. General kiln practice suggests that the glaze was probably applied in several dippings, though the very regular lower edge reduces any judgment to mere speculation. The blue splashes were applied on top of the brown glaze before firing, probably with a

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

97

brush, with the bottle was fired The Chinese huluping, which

bottle standing right side up. The right side up. name for vessels of this shape is means “calabash bottle,” a reference

to the double-lobed gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris) that in-

spired its shape. A staple of Song, Yuan, and Ming ceramics, such bottles first appeared during the Tang dynasty; though the exact date of their introduction remains obscure, such bottles had definitely entered the repertory of potters working in the north by the early eighth century, sometimes occurring in the sancai-glazed earthenware of the day. Termed Janban (blue mottles) or yuebaiban (bluish white mottles) in Chinese,’ the milky blue splashes on the Lushan family of brown-glazed wares can range from virtually white to light blue, though they usually include both blue and white in a variegated

98

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

pattern. In rare instances, the material used to create the splashes was applied so extensively that the vessels appear to have a variegated bluish white glaze on first inspection. Because they stand above the surface of the brown glaze in relatively thick welts, the blue splashes on this bottle are unusual in the context of Lushan wares. The material applied to produce the suffusions caused the glaze to bubble, even to boil, during firing, resulting in the textured ndges along the edges of the blue splashes and in the burst bubbles within some of them. The thick, dark brown glaze and the well-defined blue splashes with their crisp edges point to the Duandian kiln in Lushan county as the origin of this exceptionally fine calabash bottle. The excellent potting and the meticulous application of the glaze— which extends to the very edge of the foot—also

bespeak a Lushan provenance. Calabash bottles produced at other kilns in Henan in the eighth century tend to have ovoid containers, while those made in

the ninth century often have spherical ones,” suggesting a ninth-century date for this example. Its present whereabouts unknown, a very simular bottle, also with the brown glaze extending to the foot but without the ridges surrounding the blue splashes, was formerly in the collection of Mrs. Alfred Clark. A related calabash bottle, but with a more elliptically shaped container and with two loop handles on the shoulder, is in the collection of the Ru Ceramics Museum in Ruzhou, Henan.* PROVENANCE:

British Rail Pension Fund

EXHIBITED: Fair, 1986

London, Dorchester International Ceramics

PUBLISHED:

Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire, p. 69, no. 44;

Klapthor, “Chinese Ceramics from the Collection of Peter and Irene Scheinman,” p. §8, fig. 14.

N

1 Literally meaning “moon white mottles,” yuebaiban should be translated idiomatically as “bluish white mottles” or “bluish white splashes.” See Watson,

Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 94.

juts outward from the shoulder, opposite the handle, which is in the form of a dragon biting the ewer’s lip. The dragon’s body rises almost vertically from the shoulder, arches upward, then curves inward and downward to meet the lip, where it terminates in a stylized head with molded features on the top, and in either a lower jaw or cursory paws on the underside. The dragon’s arched back projects above the flaring lip, and a dorsal crest stretches along its spine from the head to the furled tail, which resembles a button

at the bottom of the handle. Suffused with milky blue splashes, a thin, dark brown glaze covers the vessel, stopping approximately one inch short of the foot. The exposed body clay of the foot and lower portion of the container fired light gray. The ewer was turned on the potter’s wheel in sections that were luted together after drying; the spout and the molded handle were set into place after the ewer had been assembled, but before the glaze was applied. The bridge portion of the handle was molded in two strands, the join visible on the underside, but masked by the dorsal crest on the top. The glaze was applied in several dippings, as indicated by its somewhat irregular lower edge. The blue splashes were applied

3 See William Willetts, Foundations of Chinese Art (New York, Toronto, and London,

1965), p. 258, pl. 40.

4 See Zhao Qingyun and Zhang Jiuyi, “Henan Ruci bowuguan cangpin xuanjie” [An Introduction to Selected Works in the Collection of the Ru Ceramics Museum in Henan], Wenwu 11 (1989): 20, fig. 23.

LO GLOBULAR EWER WITH SHORT SPOUT, FLARING LIP, AND DOUBLE-DRAGON HANDLE,

AND

WITH

BLUE

SPLASHES

Tang dynasty, 8th—9th century Huangdao ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze with variegated light blue suffusions From the Huangdao kiln, Jia county, Henan province H.

16.7 ome Diam.

17.3 cm

University of Michigan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Henry Jewett Greene, for the Mr. and Mrs. Henry Jewett Greene Memonial Collection [1971/2.70]| This ovoid ewer rests on a small, solid, circular foot

with vertical walls. The container is almost spherical, its midsection, rather than its shoulder, being the

point of greatest diameter. A narrow, cylindrical neck rises from the top of the globular container, its lip flaring in trumpet fashion. The short, tubular spout

IO

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

99

on top of the brown glaze, probably with a brush, before firing, with the ewer standing night side up.

1 The discovery and investigation of the Huangdao kiln in Jia county in 1964 confirmed the production there in Tang times of stonewares with white glazes, yellow glazes, and brown/black glazes, as well as of whiteglazed pieces with green markings, and dark brown-

The ewer was also fired right side up. Termed variously a zhuhu, zhuzi, zhihu, or

As cautioned in the previous entries, however, the

dating of Lushan and Huangdao wares remains uncertain, and it may turn out that archaeologists will one day show this ewer to be an eighth-century piece. There is a similar ewer in the Museum for Ru Ceramics in Ruzhou, Henan province,” and another in the Museum fiir Ostasiatische Kunst, Staatliche Museum Preussischer Kulturbesitz, in Berlin.? The

glazed pieces with bluish white mottles; Feng, “Xin Zhongguo taoci kaogu di zhuyao shouhuo,” pp. 31-32; Feng, “Sanshinian lai woguo taoci kaogu di shouhuo,” p. 20; Wang, “Henan Tang Song ciyao yizhi di faxian yu i)

yanjiu,” p. 10.

See Zhao and Zhang, “Henan Ruci bowuguan cangpin

xuanjle,” p. 20, fig. 22. Ww

shuizhu (all meaning “ewer’’), this vessel shares the same basic shape and function as the tea-dust-glazed example from the Huangpu kiln (no. 6). Produced about the same time, the ewers show slightly different interpretations of the form and of the dragon handle, the differences reflecting the varying aesthetic preferences of the two kilns and their clients. If the large guan jar from The Newark Museum (no. 8) and the calabash bottle from the Scheinman Collection (no. 9) are from the Duandian kiln in Lushan, this appealing ewer from the University of Michigan Museum of Art is almost certainly from the Huangdao kiln in Jia county, as indicated by its thin—and in places transparent— glaze and by its irregularly shaped blue splashes with their blurred edges." The short spout and the dragon-form handle place this ewer firmly within the context of Tang ceramics, as do its solid foot and unglazed lower portion. The ewer’s full, bulging form and its flaring lip set atop a narrow, cylindrical neck would seem to anticipate the northern wine bottles of the eleventh and early twelfth century in shape (see no. 24), suggesting the possibility of a date in the ninth century.

See Medley, T’ang Pottery and Porcelain, pl. M (opposite

p. 97).

4 See Mainichi shimbunsha [The Mainichi Newspapers]

and Nihon Chigoku bunka koryt kydkai [ Japan-China Cultural Exchange Association], Chiigoku nisennen no bi:

Ko toji to Seian hirin takuhon ten [China’s Beauty of 2,000 Years: Exhibition of Ceramics and Rubbings of Inscriptions in the Hsi-an Museum], exh. cat., Matsuya Department Store (Tokyo, 1965), n.p., no. 62.

1 COVERED

OVOID

JAR

WITH

BLUE

SPLASHES

Tang dynasty, 8th—9th century Huangdao ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze with variegated light blue suffusions From the Huangdao kiln, Jia county, Henan province H..29.2 cm; Diam.

22.3 cm

The Nelson-Atkins Museum

of Art, Kansas City, Mis-

souri (Purchase: Acquired through the generosity of Mrs. DeVere Dierks in memory of Ruth Dierks Konstantinou)

[F80-34]

related ewer in the Xi'an Museum has a shorter neck and less dramatic lip,* while the related but unpublished example in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco has a lobed lip (B60 P1514).

An ovoid, covered guan jar, this vessel stands on a

PROVENANCE:

out-turned lip, which circumscribes a mouth only slightly smaller in diameter than the foot. Encircled by a short, horizontal lip, the lightly domed cover has a knob in the form ofa jewel or lotus bud at its center; a flange projects downward on its underside to secure the cover. A relatively thin, lustrous, dark brown glaze covers both the interior and exterior of the jar, stopping roughly one inch above the foot. On the shoulder are several large milky blue splashes with fingerlike projections that trail diagonally downward. The unglazed portions at the bottom of the jar fired a light grayish buff. Unglazed on its underside, the cover’s upper surface boasts a coating of

James Marshall Plumer; Mr. and Mrs. Henry

Jewett Greene

PUBLISHED: The Brooklyn Museum, The Art and Technique of Ceramics, exh. cat., The Brooklyn Museum

(New York,

1937), p. 85; Institute of Fine Arts, University of Michigan,

Early Chinese Pottery (Ann Arbor,

1938), p. 9; Forrest McGill

and Alice R. Merrill, “Catalogue of the Mr. and Mrs. Henry Jewett Greene Memorial Collection of Far Eastern Ceramics,” The University of Michigan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s. no. 7 (1972-1973): 28-29; University of Michigan Museum

of Art, Eighty Works in the Collection of the University of Michi-

gan Museum of Art: A Handbook (Ann Arbor, 1979), no. 7.

100

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

small, solid, circular foot with vertical walls and a

lightly chamfered, or beveled, edge. Its walls rise steeply from the foot, turning inward to form the

shoulder, and then rising to culminate in the short,

ee

the same blue-splashed, dark brown glaze as the guan itself. The jar was turned on the potter’s wheel in sections that were luted together after drying, but before the glaze was applied. Its somewhat irregular lower edge indicates that the glaze was applied to the jar in several dippings. The blue splashes were applied, probably with a brush, on top of the brown glaze before firing, with the jar standing nght side up. The jar was fired right side up. The application of glaze to all areas of the neck indicates that the cover must have been fired separately from the jar, though perhaps in the same firing; the cover probably stood upright on its flange, which, being unglazed, did not fuse to the kiln furniture. This beautiful jar from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art numbers among the very small group of such jars with original covers. Many guan must originally have been outfitted with covers, but few such covers are extant. The covers not only protected the

vessels’ contents, but completed the vessels aesthetically. Although the well-patterned, hard-edged blue splashes might argue for an attribution to the Duandian kiln, the thin, glassy brown glaze points to the Huangdao kiln in Jia county as the place of manufacture, as do the planar potting marks visible both on the unglazed lower portion and (through the relatively transparent brown glaze) on the walls themselves. Resulting from the use of relatively coarse body clay and from the rapid shaping of the walls, the numerous pits and other minor imperfections in the exterior walls—mostly concealed by the brown glaze—also bespeak the Huangdao kiln. This jar has the same basic shape as the previously discussed dark-glazed jar from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (no. §), indicating that they were produced about the same time, probably in the eighth or ninth century.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

101

A virtually identical covered jar—almost certainly from the Huangdao kiln due to its fuzzy-edged blue splashes—1s in a Japanese collection;* another, also from Huangdao, is in the Meiyintang Collection.* Though without a cover, a closely related jar in The Cleveland Museum of Art must come from the Huangdao kiln as well.? PUBLISHED:

Roger Ward and Eliot W. Rowlands, eds., A

Bountiful Decade: Selected Acquisitions 1977-1987 (Kansas City, Mo.,

1987), no. 22; Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds.,

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection

(New York, 1993), p. 294.

1 See Sat6 and Hasebe, Zui Td, p. 119, no. 98.

2 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, p. 130, no. 211.

3 See Jennifer Neils, ed., The World of Ceramics: Masterpieces from The Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, 1982),

no. 9S.

12 CUPSTAND AND

WITH

RUSSET

CIRCULAR

RIM

GLAZE

Northern Song period, probably 11th century Russet Ding ware: porcelaneous stoneware with mottled russet-surfaced dark brown glaze Probably from the kilns at Jianci village, possibly from those at East or West Yanchuan village, Quyang county,

Hebei province

H. 6.9 cm; Diam.

12.7 cm

Dr. and Mrs. Marvin L. Gordon

In profile, this elegant cupstand resembles a small bowl resting on a high-footed saucer. Of circular form, the saucer portion sits on a tall, hollow, circu-

lar foot that 1s lightly splayed. The alms-bowl-shaped receptacle rises from the center of the saucer, its walls turning in delicately at the mouth. Although the receptacle was turned without a floor, the top of the saucer, to which it 1s fused, effectively closes the opening at the bottom of the receptacle so that its walls do not flow directly into the hollow footring. Semilustrous and slightly variegated, a russetsurfaced, dark brown glaze covers the entire piece, including the interior of the receptacle as well as the base and the inside of the footring; only the bottom of the footring was left unglazed. The receptacle and the saucer were separately turned on the potter’s wheel and then luted together after drying. The glaze was applied by dipping, the smudges on the footring

102.

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

documenting the points where the potter held the piece while applying the glaze. The cupstand was fired nght side up, standing on its own footring. Known in English as cupstands, such saucers are variously called chatuo (tea stands), zhantuo (teabowl stands), tuozi, or tuozuo (the last two terms both meaning “stands’’) in Chinese. Cupstands appeared during the Tang dynasty, along with a number of other new utensils for preparing and drinking tea. Although such standard Tang works on tea as Lu Yu’s Chajing [Classic of Tea] do not list it among the utensils necessary for drinking tea,’ the cupstand nevertheless grew in popularity. The Tang author Li Guangwu attributes the invention of the cupstand to the daughter of Cui Ning (718-779), Prime Minister

of Shu. Li noted in his Zixia ji that since the lady’s teacup lacked a means for holding it, she often burned her fingers, and so placed a small dish under the cup for support. Because it was easy to spill the tea in drinking from the cup while holding only the dish, she placed a ring of wax in the center of the dish. Finding this a satisfactory method of holding the cup in place, she ordered her craftsmen to substitute a lacquer ring for the wax one.* While Li

Guangwu does not detail its evolution, his discussion indicates that the cupstand arose for practical purposes, and served as an elaborate saucer that could be used to hold a teabowl while drinking hot tea. The cupstand’s popularity during the Tang has been well attested, examples having come to light in both silver? and porcelain.* The immediate models for the present cupstand, however, are not those from the Tang dynasty, but those of metal’ and lacquer® from the Northern Song. A brown-glazed, Yaozhou-ware cupstand was excavated from the mid-Northern Song (i.e., eleventh-century) stratum at the Huangpu kiln site,’ but whether the Ding or the Yaozhou kilns were the first to produce dark-glazed cupstands remains uncertain. This cupstand was fashioned in Ding ware, one of the so-called “‘five great wares” of the Song, along

with Jun, Ru, Guan, and Ge wares. Best known for

their white wares, the Ding kilns also produced

pieces with russet, dark brown, and black glazes; in

rare instances, they even experimented with lowfiring, emerald green glazes. Although they were not imperial kilns per se—that is, they were not operated by the government, nor did they produce ceramics exclusively for the imperial household—the Ding kilns nevertheless supplied substantial quantities of ceramic ware to the palace in the late tenth, eleventh, and early twelfth centuries. Produced at a number of small kilns at Jianci village and at East and West Yanchuan villages in

[2

Quyang county, Hebei province, Ding ceramics are so named because Quyang county fell within the Dingzhou administrative district during the Song. Elegant forms and thin walls typify Ding ware, the thin walls resulting in pieces of unusually light weight. The smooth, fine-grained bodies of Ding pieces are pure white, though the exposed paste in unglazed areas sometimes shows an ivory skin that formed during firing. Composed almost entirely of kaolin, with the admixture of little or no petuntse (China stone), the bodies of Ding pieces are only slightly translucent, transmitting a warm orange light when they transmit light at all. Throughout the Six Dynasties and Tang periods, celadon-glazed stonewares commanded pride of place as the most preferred ceramics. White wares began their ascendancy during the Tang, with the emergence first of white stoneware and then of porcelain, though it would be many centuries before they supplanted the celadons. People of Tang compared celadon wares to jade and white wares to silver, favoring jade over silver, and thus celadons over white wares. By Song times, white Ding ware had gained appreciation at the imperial court. Wanting to make their wares harmonize with vessels in precious materials used at the court, potters at the Ding kilns began to coat some pieces with dark glazes, in imitation of the brown and black lacquers that were prized at the time. From the Southern Song period, a

brown-lacquer cupstand recently excavated from a tomb in Jiangsu province descends from the same Northern Song lacquer prototype that doubtless inspired this Ding cupstand in both shape and color.* Although white Ding ware is well documented in the Song literary record, the earliest written reference to dark-glazed Ding ware appears to be the mention by Cao Zhao in his Gegu yaolun (The Essential Criteria of Antiquities) of 1388: “There 1s [also] brown Ding, whose color is purplish brown, and there is black Ding, whose color is lacquer black; [both] have pure white bodies; [their] prices exceed those of white Ding.”? In his brief discussion Cao includes a line from a poem by Su Shi (1036-1101): “Decorated wares of Dingzhou, polished red jade. »TO The significance of the line remains uncertain, since it could mean that some Ding pieces resemble polished red jade, or that fine-quality decorated Ding pieces are as rare as polished red jade. Cao Zhao used the standard Chinese word bai for “White,” so the meaning of bai Ding, or “white Ding,” is clear; in like manner, he used the standard

word hei for “black,” so the meaning of hei Ding, or “black Ding,” is also clear. For those pieces we call ‘“russet,” however, he used zi, an ambiguous term

that has occasioned much confusion, for although it can mean “dark brown” or “brownish purple,” it usually means “purple.” Assuming Cao Zhao meant “purple,” some connoisseurs have searched for Ding

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

103

tionally fond of Ding ware, Japanese collectors and connoisseurs have further clouded the nomenclature by referring to russet-glazed pieces as kaki (Chinese, shi), or “persimmon,” Ding, a term that the Chinese themselves seldom use in classifying Ding ware. As a result, Ding wares with rust-colored glaze are variously called “red Ding,” “brown Ding,” “purple Ding,” “persimmon Ding,” and even “zi Ding” and “kaki Ding” in English. Although Feng Xianming has suggested that pieces of this type be termed “‘soysauce-colored,”** that description does not adequately distinguish rust-colored pieces from those rare examples with a true, dark brown glaze (see no. 19). It is thus here proposed that pieces with rustcolored glaze be called “russet Ding” and that those with a deeper hue be called “dark brown Ding.” Even if dark-glazed Ding pieces attracted little mention in early literature, excavations at the kiln site in Jianci village in Quyang county have confirmed the production there of black- and russet-

PROVENANCE: Ruth Dreyfus Collection; Arthur M. Sackler Collections EXHIBITED:

1 Lu Yu, Chajing [Classic of Tea] in Chashi chadian [Standard Works on Tea and Its History], Zhu Xiaoming, ed. (Taipei, 1981), pp. 9—-ST.

Wenwu 10 (1988): 55-56. For information on Cui Ning, see Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary (London, Shanghai, and Yokohama, 1898), p. 776 (Ts’ui

Ning).

25-26,

104

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

W.

Kelley,

Chinese

pp.

Gold and

Silver in American Collections: Tang Dynasty, A.D. 618-907,

aw

1984), p. 66, no. 32.

Jianci kilns have yielded a few black-glazed sherds, but the majority of the dark-glazed finds have come from the mid-Northern Song (1023-1085) stratum,

See Lin Shimin, “Zhejiang Ningbo shi chutu yipi Tangdai ciqi” [A Group of Tang Porcelains and Stonewares

A

Unearthed in Ningbo, Zhejiang], Wenwu 7 (1976): pl. 5, no. 4; Bo Gyllensvard, Chinese Gold, Silver, and Porcelain: The Kempe Collection (New York, 1971), p. 94, no. 88; Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware, p. $4, no. 139.

See Hefei shi wenwu guanlichu [Hefei Municipal Antiguities Preservation Bureau], “Hefei Bei Song Ma Shaoting fugi hezang mu” [The Northern Song Tomb of Ma Shaoting and His Wife in Hefei],

Wenwu 3 (1991): 31,

fig. 19; Yang Boda, ed., Gongyi meishu bian: Jin yin boli falang qi (Crafts: Gold, Silver, Glass, and Enamel], Zhongguo meishu quanji [A Compendium of Chinese Art] series, Nn

vol. 3, pt. 9 (Beying, 1987), pp. 28, 47, no. 98.

See Zhejiang sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo [Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Archaeology], “Hangzhou Beidaqiao Song mu” [A Song Tomb at Beidagiao, Hangzhou],

Wenwu

11 (1988): $8, fig. 9; Hin-cheung Lovell,

~]

“Sung and Yiian Monochrome Lacquers in the Freer Gallery,” Ars Orientalis 9 (1973): pl. 4, fig. 4c and pl. 8, fig. 13.

Co

ovoid vases excavated in 1974 from the tomb of

figs. 27, 31; Clarence

exh. cat., The Dayton Art Institute (Dayton, Ohio,

ated data from the kilns, but have aided in establish-

Zhang Min (d. 1071) on the outskirts of Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, reveal not only that such mid- to late-eleventh-century pieces already display a high degree of sophistication, but that their footrings typically show the narrow unglazed ring mentioned above.'°

See Zhenjiang shi bowuguan and Shaanxi sheng bowuguan, Tangdai jinyingi, pp. 181-2, nos. 166, 178-82; Dantu xian wenjiaoju and Zhenjiang bowuguan, “Jiangsu Dantu Dingmaogqiao chutu Tangdai yinqi jiaocang,”

the Northern Song period have not only substanti-

with a smaller quantity from the late-Northern Song (1086-1127) and Jin (1115-1234) strata. This cupstand’s elegant form and unadorned surfaces suggest a date in the eleventh century, as do its monochrome russet glaze and the treatment of its foot. In pieces from the eleventh century, the foot tends to have walls of uniform thickness and the bottom edge tends to be U-shaped, or at least generally rounded, the planar knife marks from shaping it usually still visible; in addition, such pieces typically show a narrow but distinct ring of unglazed body clay around the lowest portion of the foot, inside and out, just above the bottom itself.'* From the mid-twelfth century onward, by contrast, the footring is almost fully coated with glaze.'> The pair of russet-glazed Ding

Quoted in Han Wei, “Cong yincha fengshang kan Fa-

mensi dengdi chutu di Tangdai jinyin chaju” [A Look at the Gold and Silver Tea Utensils from Famensi and Related Sites on the Basis of Tea-Drinking Customs],

glazed Ding ware in Song and Jin times.'? Authentic, dark-glazed pieces recovered from dated tombs of

ing a chronology. The late-Tang and Five Dynasties strata at the

Tel Aviv Museum, 3500 Years of Chinese Art:

Ceramics from the Arthur M. Sackler Collection, 1987.

tv

were either nonexistent or exceedingly rare.’ Tradi-

An almost identical cupstand is in the Meiyintang Collection,’’ and a closely related one is in the Victoria and Albert Museum."®

to

pieces with grape- or eggplant-colored glazes over the centuries, mistakenly concluding that such pieces

See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan Yaozhouyao, p. 23, fig. 14, no. 4, and pl. ro, no. §. See Wang Shixiang and Zhu Jiajin, eds., Gongyi meishu bian: Qigi [Crafts: Lacquer], Zhongguo meishu quanyji [A Compendium of Chinese Art] series, vol. 3, pt. 8 (Beijing, 1989), pp. 36 and 95, no. 93; for a slightly more complex example in the Asian Art Museum of San

Francisco, see Asian Art Museum

of San Francisco,

The

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco: Selected Works (San Francisco, 1994), p. 138. \O

Quoted in Zhongguo taoci bianji weiyuanhui [Chinese Ceramics Editorial Committee], Dingyao [Ding Ware], Zhongguo taoci [Chinese Ceramics] series, vol. 9 (Shang-

hai, 1983), n.p. (Appendix 1, Lidai wenxian zhulu). 10

See discussion in A. L. Hetherington, “Purple Ting,” Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, 1928-30 8 (1930): 28-33.

_

I

Ibid.

12 Feng Xianming, “Ciqi qianshuo, xu” [A General Discussion of Ceramics, Continued], Wenwu 7 (1959): 71; Zhongguo taoci bianji weiyuanhui, Dingyao, n.p.

13 Hebei sheng wenhuaju wenwu gongzuodui [Hebei Provincial Cultural Bureau, Antiquities Team], “Hebei Quyang xian Jianci cun Ding yao yizhi diaocha yu shijue” [The Investigation and Trial Excavation of the Ding Kiln Site at Jianci Village in Quyang County, Hebei Province], Kaogu 8 (1965s): 398; Feng Xianming,

“San-

shinian lai woguo taoci kaogu di shouhuo” [The Achievements of Chinese Ceramic Archaeology during the Past Thirty Years], Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 1 (1980): 19; Zhongguo taoci bianji weityuanhui, Dingyao,

n.p. 14

Compare Zhongguo taoci bianji weiyuanhui, Dingyao,

H.p., bl. 19%,

1s Compare ibid., pl. 140. 16 See ibid., pl. 58; Zhenjiang shi bowuguan [Zhenjiang Municipal Museum], “Zhenjiang shi Nanjiao Bei Song Zhang Min mu” [The Northern Song Tomb of Zhang Min in Nanjiao, Zhenjiang], Wenwu 3 (1977): pl. 4, fig. 3. 17 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, pp. 202-3, no. 354.

18 See The Arts Council of Great Britain and The Oriental Ceramic Society, The Ceramic Art of China, exh. cat., Oniental Ceramic Society (London,

47, no. 70.

1971), p. 75 and pl.

Closely related to the previous example (no. 12), this cupstand also has an alms-bowl-shaped receptacle in the center of a saucer that sits atop a hollow, circular foot with lightly splayed walls. The main difference between the two cupstands is that this one has six well-defined, evenly spaced notches around its rim that gently segment the saucer into six lobes. Lustrous in places, an even-toned,

russet-surfaced,

dark

brown glaze covers the entire piece, inside and out,

excepting only the bottom of the footring. The receptacle and the saucer were turned separately on the potter’s wheel; after drying, the two pieces were luted together and dipped into the glaze. The cupstand was fired right side up, standing on its own footring. This cupstand and the one from the Gordon Collection closely follow their metal and lacquer prototypes in form, even allowing the saucer to close the bottom of the receptacle; this arrangement contrasts with that of Ru ware cupstands, in which the walls

of the receptacle flow directly into the footring, the receptacle lacking a floor and the center of the saucer being open.’ Even though many white Ding pieces have notched rims, inspired by those of Tang silver, only the rare dark-glazed Ding piece shows such embellishment. Such subtleties, when employed, relate the forms to those that occur in nature, the lobed

saucer here simulating an open blossom, for example, the notches separating one petal from the next. Black cupstands of circular or lightly foliated shape occasionally appear in Song paintings, as they do in the large hanging scroll by Emperor Huizong (1082-1135; r. I10I—1125) in the National Palace

Museum, Taipei.* The scroll, depicting A Literary Gathering in a Garden, shows such cupstands on the foreground table, supporting small white bowls. Whether the stands represent lacquer or ceramic ware, however, remains uncertain.

The glaze covering russet Ding pieces is not rust-

colored through and through; in fact, the visible rust

color 1s but a skin over a very dark brown glaze. When even and uninterrupted, as in this cupstand

13 CUPSTAND AND

WITH

RUSSET

FOLIATE

RIM

GLAZE

Northern Song period, probably 11th century Russet Ding ware: porcelaneous stoneware with russetsurfaced dark brown glaze Probably from the kilns at Jianci village, possibly from those at East or West Yanchuan village, Quyang county, Hebei province Fi, 6.3 em

Digi,

£126

The Saint Louis Art Museum, Bequest of Samuel C. Davis [1006:1940]

from The Saint Louis Art Museum,

the russet skin

completely conceals the black-coftee brown glaze beneath. When the skin varies slightly in thickness, the glaze appears variegated or iridescent, as it does in the Gordon Collection cupstand. A chip, when present, shows the russet skin to be a paper-thin coating over the thicker, primary glaze, which typically appears bluish black. Because gravity pulls the melting glaze downward during firing, rims usually have only a thin coating of glaze; since more of the white body clay is visible in those areas, dark-glazed pieces often appear to be edged in white. Though

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

105

(FeO).° The use of coal as fuel at the Ding kilns from the mid-tenth century onward may have facilitated the production of the rust-colored ferric oxide; since coal does not readily lend itself to the maintenance of a reducing atmosphere, the kilns began regularly to use an oxidizing atmosphere once they switched from wood to coal as fuel.° Like the one from the Gordon Collection, this

cupstand has a footring whose walls are of uniform thickness and whose bottom edge is not only Ushaped but unglazed, suggesting an attribution to the eleventh century. An almost identical example appears in the Carl Kempe Collection;’ a related example—of identical shape, but of qingbai ware—is in a Japanese collection.” PUBLISHED:

St. Louis Art Museum,

“The Samuel C. Davis

Collection of Chinese Ceramics,” The Bulletin of the City Art

ke

Museum of St. Louis vol. 26, no. 1 (January 1941): 16, no. $1; St. Louis Art Museum, The St. Louis Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (St. Louis, 1975), p. 284.

ating the form.

concentrations of iron, the rust-colored areas are ba-

sically ferric oxide (Fe,O,) rather than ferrous oxide

106

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Painting in the Palace Museum (Taizhong, Taiwan, vol. 2, no. 92.

1959),

3 Ye Zhemin, ed., Zhongguo gutaoci kexue jianshuo [An Introduction to the Ceramic Science of Ancient China| (Beying, 1960), p. 28. 4 Oriental Ceramic Society, Iron in the Fire, p. 10.

5 Ye, Zhongguo gutaoci kexue jianshuo, p. $3. 6 Li Huibing and Bi Nanhai, “Lun Ding yao shaoci gongyi di fazhan yu lishi fengi” [A Discussion of the Development of the Firing Techniques at the Ding Kilns and a Periodization of the Wares], Kaogu 12 (1987): 1125. ~—l

the dark brown glaze descends from the dark glazes pioneered during the Six Dynasties and Tang periods (nos. 1-7). In feldspathic glazes fired in a reducing atmosphere, a pale, bluish green color—like that of window glass—appears when the concentration of ferrous oxide (FeO) reaches 0.8 percent. As the amount of ferrous oxide increases, the bluish green color deepens, with concentrations of I percent to 3 percent yielding celadon glazes. Additional ferrous oxide interferes with reduction firing, resulting in brown glazes; those with concentrations of 5 percent or more turn dark brown, appearing black to the naked eye when sufficiently thick.’ The rust color—whether as skin in these Ding pieces or as discrete splashes in pieces with mottled glazes—appears when the glaze is saturated with more iron than it can absorb.* Splashed onto pieces with discrete mottles and painted onto those with pictorial designs, the additional iron was likely applied to those with a russet skin by dipping, in a separate application over the primary glaze. In effect, the excess iron segregates itself from the primary glaze during firing, forming either a skin or discrete splashes, depending on the extent of application. Because reduction firing is difficult to sustain with high

2 Even if the painting is a slightly later copy, as some have suggested, it faithfully reproduces the various ceramics in Song style. See Editorial Committee of the Joint Board of Directors of the National Palace Museum and National Central Museum, Three Hundred Masterpieces of Chinese

See Basil Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware (London, Boston, 1984), p. 71, pl. 49; Bo Gyllensvard, Chinese

Ceramics in the Carl Kempe Collection (Stockholm, n.d.), no. 420.

CO

More lustrous and glasslike because it has been

fired in the range of 1200 to 1250 degrees Celcius,

See Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, Imperial

Taste: Chinese Ceramics from the Percival David Foundation, exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles and San Francisco, 1989), p. 37, no. I3.

coincidental, the light edges act as borders, accentu-

See Tdkys6 kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 115, pl. 165.

footring indicate that the bowl was fired right side up.

i CONICAL TRACES

BOWL OF

A

WITH

WIDE

RUSSET

METAL

GLAZE

AND

BAND

Northern Song period, probably 11th century Russet Ding ware: porcelaneous stoneware with russetsurfaced dark brown glaze, the rm originally with a wide metal band Probably from the kilns at Jianci village, possibly from those at East or West Yanchuan village, Quyang county, Hebei province He 9.9 Gna Dia.

12,6.cmn

Anonymous loan Of flattened V-shaped profile, this small, conical

bowl has thin, straight walls that rise from a short,

well-cut, circular foot. At the center of the interior, a

subtle ring defines the slightly convex floor. Slightly mottled from burial and of varying thickness, a thin, dark brown glaze with russet skin covers the bowl inside and out, excepting only the bottom of the footring, which shows the white body characteristic of Ding ware. The band of even-toned, slightly lighter glaze around the rim marks the area that was until recently covered by a wide metal band; removed during repair in Japan, the remains of the metal band are preserved in the owner’s care. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, perhaps over a hump mold that regulated the diameter, set the pitch of the walls, and shaped the floor; the potter finished the exterior by hand, determining the thickness of the walls and cutting the foot. The glaze was applied by dipping, the small smudges on the walls surrounding the foot revealing the points where the potter held the bowl during its application. Particles of kiln grit adhering to the glaze at the edge of the

Called wan in Chinese, bowls claim an ancient

lineage, figuring among the most basic ceramic shapes. Conical bowls with straight, flaring sides had appeared during the late Tang, and were frequently produced in porcelain by potters at the Xing kilns in the tenth century, albeit with different proportions and with a footring of greater diameter. Bowls of this exact type, with a flattened V-shaped profile and a tiny, well-defined floor, appeared only in the Song, probably in the eleventh century. Bowls of this profile also figure in the repertory of Song silver shapes.” An unusual feature of this bowl, though not a unique one, is its rm, which until recently was banded with metal.? From the late eleventh century onward, bowls and other open-shaped vessels in white Ding ware were stacked upside down in their saggars, smaller pieces nested under larger ones, so that the kiln could be filled to maximum capacity.* Pieces so fired had to have their mouth rims wiped free of glaze before stacking so they would not fuse to the saggar; after firing, the pieces were finished

with metal bands—usually of gold, silver, bronze,

copper, or tin—to conceal the unglazed lip. Since dark-glazed Ding vessels were characteristically fired right side up, however, their rims are fully glazed and did not require a metal band for mere cosmetic effects. In the case of dark-glazed Ding wares, the banding follows the centuries-old Chinese custom of adding metal mounts to selected vessels of lacquer, ceramic, and even jade to set them apart from the ordinary, and to make them suitable for a particular client or class. As early as the Han dynasty, metal bands were sometimes affixed to lacquer and ceramic

14 Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

107

pieces, as revealed by the Western Han lacquer box

City, Mo., 1973), p. 25; an unpublished Han rectangular covered box with metal mounts is on loan to the Harvard University Art Museum (loan number TL33099.1).

of Art,

of the day. The recovery in 1973 of a dark-glazed

bowl with a wide silver band from a late Northern

Song tomb near Hefei, Anhui province, establishes

both that dark-glazed bowls were sometimes banded with metal during the Northern Song period and that, when used, such rims were relatively wide.*®

Probably of either silver or tin, the metal band on

6 See Mino and Tsiang, Ice and Green Clouds, pp. 60-61,

no. 17.

7 See, for example, Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, rev. ed. (New York, 1989), n.p., color

pl. 00

Kansas City, and by the Eastern Han glazedstoneware covered bowl in the Art Institute of Chicago, both of which sport gilt bronze mounts.° The ochre and white bands on Western Han funerary vessels of painted earthenware doubtless mirror the gold and silver mounts on their lacquer models, suggesting that the practice of metal banding was both desirable and widespread at the time.’ By the early seventh century, even some jade cups were finished with gold bands, a remarkable phenomenon in that jade was itself considered the most precious of all materials in traditional China.* In the tenth century, white wares and celadon-glazed stonewares? destined for the court were often finished with metal bands, a practice confirmed both by archaeologically attested ceramics and by mentions in literary records

no. 217; Tang, “Xi’an Xyiao Sui Li Jingxun mu fajue jianbao,” [A Brief Report on the Sui Tomb of Li Jingxun, in Xijiao, Xi'an], Kaogu 9 (1959): pl. 3, no. 8.

Oo

tN

=

band and the fully and meticulously glazed base."* See Watson,

Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 168, no. 174.

See Yang, Gongyi meishu bian: Jin yin boli falang qi, pp. 29, 49, no. 102. For a related russet-glazed Ding conical bowl, also with traces of a metal band, see Hasebe Gakuji, Sd [Song], Sekai toji zenshii [Ceramic Art of the World] series, vol. 12 (Tokyo, 1977), pp. 26-27, nos. 19-21; Nezu biu-

tsukan [Nezu Institute of Fine Arts], Teiyd hakuji [White Porcelain of the Ding Kilns], exh. cat., Nezu Institute of Fine Arts (Tokyo, 1983), p. 13, no. 140.

”n

4 Liand Bi, “Lun Ding yao shaoci gongyi di fazhan yu lishi fengi, p. 112s. See Ross E. Taggart, George L. McKenna, and Marc F. Wilson, eds., Handbook of the Collections in the William

Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 2, sth ed. (Kansas

108

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

See Sat6 and Hasebe, Zui Td, pp. 108-9, figs. 86-87; Watson,

Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 168, nos. 175-6.

10 See Anhui sheng bowuguan [Anhui Provincial Museum], “Hefei Dongjiao Daxingji Bei Song Bao Zheng jiazu muqun fajue baogao” [A Report on the Excavation of the Northern Song Cemetery of the Bao Zheng Clan at Daxingji, Dongjiao, Hefei], Wenwu ziliao congkan 3 (1980): 169, 178, fig. 47.

11 Compare the carefully glazed bases on the two eleventhcentury, russet-glazed Ding bottles excavated from the tomb of Zhang Min (d. 1071); see Zhongguo taoci bianj1 welyuanhui, Dingyao, n.p., pl. 58.

this bowl measured 1.3 cm in width on the interior and 0.9 cm on the exterior. The metal bands on most ceramics—including those on white Ding pieces—

were relatively wide during the Five Dynasties and Northern Song periods; in most cases, the narrow bands of rolled metal that appear on Song ceramics today were added in the nineteenth or twentieth century as replacements for lost or damaged originals. The footring’s relatively thick walls and its Ushaped bottom point to a date of manufacture in the eleventh century for this bowl, as do the wide metal

See Yang Boda, ed., Gongyi meishu bian: Yuqi |Crafts: Jade], Zhongguo meishu quanji [A Compendium of Chinese Art] series, vol. 3, pt. 9 (Beying, 1986), pp. 77, 119,

\O

and cover in the Nelson-Atkins Museum

i CONICAL

WITH

BOWL

TRACES

WITH

OF

RUSSET

FIORAL

GLAZE

AND

DECOR

Northern Song period, probably 11th century Russet Ding ware: porcelaneous stoneware with russetsurfaced dark brown glaze and with traces of decoration in overglaze gold leaf

Probably from the kilns at Jianci village, possibly from

those at East or West Yanchuan village, Quyang county, Hebei province H. 4.7 cm; Diam.

12.5 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Bequest of Hervey E. Wetzel [1919.207] Slightly taller than the previous example (no. 14) but

otherwise similarly shaped, this conical bow] 1s V-shaped in section and has thin, straight walls that rise at a forty-five-degree angle from a short, meticulously cut foot. It has a tiny, well-defined floor at the center of the interior. An even, lustrous, russetskinned, dark brown glaze covers the entire bow],

except for the walls of the footring, which display the white body typical of Ding ware. The meticulously glazed base includes a fingerprint that radiates

out from the center. Raking light reveals the ghost of an overglaze decorative scheme on the bowl’s interior; worked in gold leaf, the decorative scheme fea-

tured three discrete floral sprays with butterflies in the interstices. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel without the use of a hump mold, as indicated by slight ridges in the interior walls; the glaze was applied by dipping; the bowl was fired right side up, standing on its footring. After firing, cut gold leaf was applied to create the decoration and the bowl was fired again, at a very low temperature, to fuse the gold leaf to the glaze surface. Because a coating of grime caused the footring’s exposed body clay to appear light gray rather than

white, some have considered this bowl to be imita-

tion Ding ware, made in the Song dynasty by one of the many Cizhou-type kilns, rather than russetglazed Ding ware. The discovery of traces of overglaze gold-leaf decoration on the bowl’s interior prompted a technical study in 1990; that study not only unraveled the design scheme but proved the bowl to be Ding ware by showing its chemical composition to be consistent with that of white Ding

sherds collected at Ding kiln sites."

In his technical study, Earl S. Tai coaxed the now barely visible gold-leaf decoration to reveal itself under controlled lighting conditions.* The decorative scheme comprises three floral sprays, each arranged in a triangular configuration that is wide at the top and pointed at the bottom to fit the bowl’s flaring walls. Each openwork spray has a blossom at its cen-

ter, with leafy stems to the left and budding branches above and to the right. A detached chrysanthemum blossom with radiating petals enlivens the bowl’s small floor, while two butterflies, one above the other, ascend between

adjacent floral sprays. Although it was probably introduced into Ding ware only in the eleventh century, the motif of butterflies fluttering amidst blossoming branches had already made its appearance on the decorated backs of bronze mirrors during the Tang dynasty. The 1983 recovery of a russet-glazed Ding bottle with traces of gold decoration from a presumed Song context near Hefei, Anhui province, attests to the antiquity of such wares.* In addition, the late Song literatus Zhou Mi (1232-1298) remarked in his Zhiyatang zachao that ““[For] Ding bowls with gold decoration, garlic juice was used to prepare the gold, [which was then] painted on; after that, the bowls were placed in the kiln and fired again; [the gold] will never come off.”* Even if his optimistic assessment that the gold would not come off does not hold true, Zhou Mi’s comment anchors gold-embellished Ding pieces in the Song literary record, and correctly notes that they were fired a second time to fuse the gold to the glaze surface.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

109

the voids are not interconnected and thus lack a means for holding them in place to create a repeating design. Since the lines of the image are interconnected, however, the method doubtless involved a

positive, rather than a negative, device, perhaps a

woodblock print.°

Earl Tai’s technical examination also discerned a subtle, textile-like pattern surrounding each image, though it remains uncertain whether this pattern is a transformation in the glaze or an accretion on its surface. Since the exceptionally thin gold leaf would have to have been backed to permit handling, cutting, and placement on the bowl’s walls, such a pattern might relate to the backing on the gold leaf. As the bowl had already been fired when the gold leaf was applied, the backing, by itself, could not have

left an imprint in the glaze. It is probable, however, that an adhesive was used to secure the gold leaf to the bowl, and that the backing material left an impression in the adhesive; during the second, lowtemperature firing, the textile-marked adhesive residue might have left a subtle scar on the glaze surface.° The taste for decoration in gold may have been inspired by Tang silver vessels, which often had their decorative schemes accentuated with a thin wash of gold. In addition, floral motifs and other details were often applied to Buddhist sculpture and painting in the Tang and Song periods using the cut-gold-leaf technique (better-known in the West by the Japanese name kirikane), establishing a precedent for the use of gold leaf as a medium for embellishment. This bowl’s footring 1s triangular in section, its walls almost vertical on the exterior, but angled on the interior. This treatment varies from that of the previous bowl (no. 14), where the footring has walls of uniform thickness, but it 1s akin to those of undec-

orated white Ding bowls from the tenth and early eleventh century.’ Although evidence is too sparse to permit hard conclusions, the conical shape, the carefully glazed base, and the triangular shape of the footring and its complete lack of glaze suggest a date

110

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Two russet-

glazed, conical Ding bowls with decoration in cut gold leaf similar to this example are in the collection of

the Tokyo National Museum.® In addiDetail, no. 15 tion, virtually identical pieces, also with traces of overglaze gold, appear in the Honolulu Academy of Arts’ and the Seattle Art Museum.*° 1 Earl S. Tai, “Analysis of a Sung Ceramic Bowl,” unpublished research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Fine Arts 202 (Seminar on Technical Examination of Works of Art), Harvard University, Fall 1990, n.p. (Section C, Electron Beam Microprobe

Analysis); for information on the chemical composition of white Ding ware, see Nezu byutsukan, Teiyd hakuji, pp. 1970-2. 2 Tai, “Analysis of a Sung Ceramic Bowl,” n.p. (Section D, Visual and Photographic Analysis of Interior Images). 3 See Yuan Nanzheng, “Hefei chutu di zi Ding jincai ping” [A Russet-Glazed Ding Bottle with Gold Painting Unearthed in Hefei], Wenwu 6 (1988): 86, fig. I. 4 Quoted in Zhongguo taoci bianji we1yuanhui, Dingyao, n.p. (Appendix 1, Lidai wenxian zhulu). s Tai, “Analysis of a Sung Ceramic Bowl,” n.p. (Section

D, Visual and Photographic Analysis of Interior Images).

6 Ibid. ~

tives in the stencil, which is clearly impossible, since

in the eleventh century.

See 25; also the

Zhongguo taoci bianji weiyuanhui, Nezu bijutsukan, Teiyd hakuji, p. 25, see two unpublished tenth-century collection of the Harvard University

(1942.185.443-444).

Dingyao, n.p., pl. pl. 14, fig. 1; Ding bowls in Art Museums

8 See Toky6 kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 111, pls. 156-7; Hasebe, Sd, pp. 26-27,

nos. 19-21; Nezu bijutsukan, Teiyd hakuji, p. 85, no. 141; for other examples with gold-leaf decoration, see p. 13, nos. \O

Although we are unlikely ever to know whether or not garlic juice was actually used in preparing the gold, Earl Tai’s study established that this bowl’s designs were not painted, but were likely applied as gold leaf, as indicated by an area within one floral panel where the gold seems accidentally to have folded back on itself. The study further revealed that the three floral sprays are identical, proving that they were created through a reproductive process. The many open spaces within each spray rule out stenciling, as the voids in the design would have to be posi-

140,

143

and pp.

84-85,

nos.

139,

142,

144.

Unpublished; accession number 99.

10 See Henry Trubner, William Jay Rathbun, and Catherine A. Kaputa, Asiatic Art in the Seattle Art Museum: A Selection and Catalogue (Seattle, 1973), p. 166, no. 119; Henry

Trubner, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period through Ch’ien Lung, exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum (Los Angeles, 1952), p. 77, no. 153.

16

livens the glaze on

16 BOWL

WITH

WITH

SMALL

VARIEGATED BROWN

RUSSET

both interior and exterior. Traces of

GLAZE

glaze appear on the

FLECKS

exterior of the

footring, while a full coating of glaze

Northern Song period, probably late 11th—early 12th century Russet Ding ware: porcelaneous stoneware with russetsurfaced dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide Probably from the kilns at Jianci village, possibly from those at East or West Yanchuan village, Quyang county, Hebei province H. 5.4 cm; Diam.

18.9 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

[1942.185.411]

Of classic shape, this wan bowl has exceptionally thin, subtly rounded walls that spring from the short footring and then arc gracefully upward to the lip. At the center of the interior 1s a well-defined floor. A dark brown glaze with a thin, variegated russet skin covers the bowl inside and out, stopping about onequarter inch above the footring, where the snow white body clay is exposed. Because gravity pulled it downward in firing, the glaze thins over the rim, so that the bowl appears to be edged in white. A pattern of carefully spaced, vertical, brown flecks en-

covers the shallow base and the inte-

rior of the footring; a fingerprint interrupts the glaze on the base. The bowl] was turned on the potter’s wheel, perhaps with the aid of a hump mold; the exterior was finished by hand, as the footring was cut by hand. The glaze was applied by dipping, and the bowl was fired right side up, standing on its footring. The identification of this bowl as Ding ware was Detail, no. 16

confirmed by Eva Sander’s 1987 study, which

showed its chemical composition to be consistent with that of white Ding sherds retrieved from Ding kiln sites. Although its identification as Ding ware had never been challenged—precisely because its shape, pure white body, and characteristically cut foot make it a classic example of the ware—this bowl was examined as part ofa study that investigated similarities and differences between dark-glazed Ding wares and related wares from the Cizhou fam-

ily of kilns."

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

111

source of inspiration could have been those rare Tang lead-glazed sancai jars that have as their only ornament flecks of colored glaze, usually cobalt blue, set against an otherwise plain white ground.* Like two other bowls 1n this exhibition (nos. 15 and 18), this bowl belongs to a group of perfectly shaped, exquisitely glazed, dark Ding vessels that each has a fingerprint in the glaze on the base. Seemingly carefully placed, the fingerprint impression 1s almost invariably oriented with the knuckle at the footring and the fingertip at the center of the base. It is assumed that the print resulted from the manner in which the potter grasped the bowl when dipping it into the glaze, though it 1s possible that it was consciously impressed as a mark whose significance 1s now lost. The intrusion of a fingerprint into the otherwise meticulously glazed base of the previous bowl might suggest that the fingerprint has meaning; on the other hand, the traces of glaze on the exterior of the footring of this bowl—obviously the result of careless wiping of the raw glaze before firing, rather than the result of a glaze run during firing—might suggest that the potters who produced this bowl simply permitted themselves more relaxed standards in the finishing of the foot. Although bowls with slightly bowed walls appear among the repertory of white Ding shapes in the late tenth and early eleventh century, such bowls typically have a footring whose diameter is greater in proportion to the mouth than is the case here, so that

112

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

tense russet skin, and it lacks the flecks that make this

bowl so special.° —

ramics made at other kilns remains uncertain. One

Eva Sander, “A Comparative Study of Northern DarkGlazed Stoneware Bowls from the Song Dynasty,” unpublished research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an internship in the Harvard University Art Museums’ Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 1987.

NO

edges slightly blurred. Abstract decoration of this type first appeared on high-fired ceramics in the tenth century. Whether the Ding potters invented such decoration or whether they adapted it from ce-

of this type—with rounded walls, small foot, and

well-defined floor—soared to popularity in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, offering a clue to the dating of this bowl. As they began in the late eleventh century to fire white-ware bowls and other open-shaped vessels upside down to achieve maximum kiln capacity, potters at the Ding kilns began to cut their footrings extremely short so that in nesting similarly shaped vessels in their saggars, the footring of a smaller vessel would not interfere with the placement of a larger vessel above it.* Since this bowl was fired right side up in its own saggar, however, the height of its foot did not matter in terms of stacking the kiln; its very low footring and shallow base might simply reflect standard late-Northern Song practice in shaping bowls, which would further support the attribution to the late eleventh or early twelfth century. Russet Ding bowls with abstract flecks are extremely rare, and this one numbers among the few known examples; a black Ding bow] with russet splashes is in the collection of the Manno Art Museum, Osaka.° A related but unpublished russet Ding bowl in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco has the same shape, footring type, and exposed ring of body clay above the foot, but its glaze has a more in-

See an unpublished eighth-century Tang sancai jar with a blue-flecked white glaze in the Hofer Collection of the Arts of Asia at the Harvard University Art Museums (accession number a white

Ho. 153. Ln

the short, vertical, rust-brown streaks formed, their

the profile is distinctly different.* White Ding bowls

1967.44); for a jar with larger splashes on

glaze, see Watson,

Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 164,

See Zhongguo taoci bianji weryuanhui, Dingyao, n.p., pl. 2g,

4 See discussion in Li and Bi, “Lun Ding yao shaoci gongyi di fazhan yu lishi fenqi,” pp. 1119-25. A”

As explained above (no. 13), an opaque, rust-

colored skin will form on the surface when a glaze 1s saturated with more iron oxide than it can absorb. If the concentration of iron oxide 1s just below the saturation point, and if the firing time and temperature are properly controlled, however, most of the iron will be absorbed into the glaze, forming a “veil” within the glaze, rather than a distinct skin on the surface. Because the primary glaze is naturally lustrous, pieces so embellished are typically glossy. Probably the result of burial, a thin haze on the surface of this bowl marginally diminishes its luster, but controlled lighting readily restores its original brilliance. Dots of the same iron oxide used to create the skin were touched on the surface of the glaze before firing, perhaps with a brush; as gravity pulled the dots downward on the surface of the melting glaze,

See Toky6 kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 110, pl. 155.

6 Asian Art Museum BOO PI40S.

of San Francisco, accession number

Le COVERED WIDE-MOUTHED WITH BLACK GLAZE

JAR

Northern Song period, 11th—-early 12th century Black Ding ware: porcelaneous stoneware with dark brown glaze Possibly from the kilns at Jianci village, possibly from those at East or West Yanchuan village, Quyang county,

Hebei province

H. (jar and cover) 12.7 cm; Diam. (jar) 12.0 cm The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City,

Missouri

(Purchase: Nelson Trust)

[35-99]

Springing from a short, circular footring, the thin walls of this wide-mouthed jar flare outward and then curve upward, rising to the angular shoulder

where they turn inward and constrict to form the

short, lightly waisted neck. A short, horizontal lip encircles the base of the high, domical cover, which is surmounted by a handle in the form of a twig. On the cover’s underside, a vertical flange projects downward from the inside edge of the lip to hold the cover in place. Appearing black where thick, a dark brown glaze coats the exterior of the jar and cover. The base and the interior of the footring are unglazed, as is the footring’s exterior, except in those areas where glaze from the walls ran downward during firing. A thin wash of dark brown glaze covers the interior of the jar, stopping short of the upper

portion of the neck, which was left unglazed. A thin wash of clear glaze coats the underside of the cover’s dome and the inside of its flange, a streak of dark brown glaze appearing in the center of the dome; the exterior of the flange is unglazed, as 1s the underside

of the horizontal lip. Though drops ran onto it during firing, the cover’s outside edge was initially wiped free of glaze, revealing the white body clay, thus accentuating the shape and visually distinguishing cover from jar. The jar and cover were separately turned on the potter’s wheel and the glaze was applied by dipping. The jar was fired right side up, the cover in place atop the jar. Small jars of this type are usually called gaiguan (covered jars) in Chinese, though they are sometimes termed he (boxes), the varying names underscoring the lack of certainty about their exact function. An innovation of the Song dynasty, such jars had definitely appeared by the eleventh century, when they were made in celadon-glazed stoneware at the

Yaozhou kilns‘ and in white Ding ware at the Jianci

kilns in Quyang county.* Lacking this example’s elegantly expanding and contracting profile, most such

jars have straight, vertical walls and their covers usually have a less pronounced dome. The type may represent a pairing of the Tang straight-sided cup? with the Tang domed cover (compare no. 11), the Song cover substituting a twig-shaped handle for the jewel- or lotus-bud handle of the Tang. This magnificent covered jar from the NelsonAtkins Museum reflects the Song sensitivity to form at its consummate best. The neck’s inward curve reverses and complements the jar’s bulging walls, for example, while the cover’s high dome completes the jar’s circular profile. In addition, the jar’s angular shoulder anticipates the cover’s horizontal lip, so that no element stands visually isolated or aesthetically unresolved. No other covered jar of this profile 1s known, though the Kempe Collection in Stockholm

includes a tenth-century, white porcelain lobed jar of

similar size that has the same rounded belly, angled shoulder, and waisted neck.*

This covered jar has always been considered Ding ware; 1n fact, it probably 1s Ding ware, as indicated both by the exposed white body clay and by the subtle interpretation of the form. Those scholars who hold that the interiors of black- and russet-glazed Ding jars and their covers should be clear-glazed will question this attribution, however, since the interior

of this jar sports a thin wash of dark brown glaze.° In reality, russet and black Ding covered jars are too few in number to permit firm rules with any statistical

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

113

validity. It may be that some jars have dark-glazed exteriors and clear-glazed interiors, while others have both dark-glazed interiors and exteriors; as a comparison, most bowls have both dark-glazed interiors and exteriors (compare nos. 14-16), but a few have darkglazed exteriors and clear-glazed interiors.° It may also be that glazing practices changed over time, varied with the custom of the day, or responded differently to the taste of particular clients. Until analytical testing establishes the precise chemical composition of this jar’s body and glaze, or until a similarly shaped and glazed vessel is retrieved from the kiln site, the attribution to the Ding kilns will stand, even if some questions remain. If the jar was not made at the Ding kilns, then it must have been made at one of the nu-

merous kilns in the Cizhou family, or system, of kilns, some of which produced close copies of Ding ware. Descendants of the dark glazes of the Tang (compare no. 7), the black glazes of Song—really, dark brown glazes that appear black—are close relatives of the russet-surfaced glazes. Although it relies on iron oxide as a colorant, the glaze on this covered jar is not saturated with iron oxide, so it matured a rich, black-coftee brown, without a rust-colored skin. Ex-

touched each other had to be left unglazed to prevent fusing in the kiln; the upper portion of this jar’s interior is thus unglazed, as are the underside of the cover’s lip and the exterior of its flange. The paucity of closely related examples hampers precise dating of this covered jar. Its similarity in shape to the tenth-century porcelain jar mentioned above might suggest a relatively early (i.e., eleventhcentury) date for this piece, but its unglazed base might also argue for a date in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. Under the circumstances, a cautious attribution to the eleventh to early twelfth century seems prudent. PUBLISHED: Henry Trubner, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period through Ch’ien Lung, exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum (Los Angeles, 1952), p. 76, no. 152; Henry Trubner, “Tz’u-chou and Honan Temmoku,” Artibus Asiae

vol. 15, nos. 1/2 (1952): 159-60, fig. 8; Ross E. Taggart,

George L. McKenna, and Marc F. Wilson, eds., Handbook of

the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and

Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 2, sth ed. (Kansas City, Mo., 1973), p. 86; Ward and Fidler,

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, p. 297.

See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan

ceptionally rare, black-glazed Ding wares are even fewer in number than russet-glazed Ding pieces; like their russet counterparts, some black Ding bowls boast overglaze gold decoration.’

Yaozhouyao, n.p., pl. 12, no. 3.

See Mary Tregear, Song Ceramics (New York, 1982), p. $6, no. 30; Nezu byutsukan,

As noted in the discussion of the russet-glazed cupstand from the Gordon Collection (no. 12), Cao

114

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Yaozhouyao, p. 14, fig. 9, no. 16.

LA

See Watson,

Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 134, no. III.

Scholars favoring this theory cite as evidence the unpublished russet Ding covered jar in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (accession number 921.21.130), and the

one in the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo. For the example in the Idemitsu, see Nezu byutsukan, Teiyd hakuji,

pp.

62,

156-7, no.

145.

—S

See Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 68, no. 62 a, b.

For examples of black-glazed Ding bowls, some with gold decoration, see Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, Imperial Taste: Chinese Ceramics from the Percival David Foundation, p. 30, no. 8; Toky6 kokuritsu haku-

butsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 110, pls. 154-5; Nezu biutsukan, p. 85, no. 144. CO

Zhao mentioned black Ding ware in his Gegu yaolun of 1388: “...there is black Ding, whose color is lacquer black....”° Since Cao used the standard word hei for “black,” the meaning of hei Ding 1s clear, especially since he then went on to note that its color is as black as lacquer, the equivalent in English of saying that it is “pitch black” or “jet black.” The recovery of black Ding sherds from the kiln site at Jianci also attests to the historicity of the ware.” During the Tang dynasty, the undersides of covers were often left unglazed and the covers were usually fired separately from their vessels (compare no. 11). In such Tang vessels, the cover’s downwardprojecting flange was typically made slightly smaller in diameter than the vessel’s neck to ensure that the cover would fit after firing, the practice resulting in a bit of play in the fit of the cover. To meet the new taste for snugly fitting covers during the Five Dynasties and Song periods, vessels were not only equipped with custom-made covers, but the covers were fired in place atop the vessel, so that any slight warping in the kiln would affect cover and container alike. Those portions of the vessel and its cover that

Teiyd hakuji, p. 82, no. 10S.

See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan

Teiyd hakuji, p. 13, no. 143 and

Quoted in Zhongguo taoci bianji we1yuanhui, Dingyao, n.p. (Appendix 1, Lidai wenxian zhulu). See Zhongguo taoci bianji we1yuanhu1, Dingyao, n.p., pl. 135.

18

18 BOWL

WITH

TEA-DusT

GLAZE

Northern Song period, probably late 11th—early 12th century Tea-dust-glazed Ding ware: porcelaneous stoneware with brownish green, tea-dust glaze Probably from the kilns at Jianci village, possibly from those at East or West Yanchuan village, Quyang county, Hebei province HH. §.7 cm

Dian.

13.4, cin

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

[1942.185.404] This wan bowl shares the same gently rounded walls and tiny but well-defined floor as the bowl in catalogue number 16; it differs markedly from it, however, in having a coat of greenish brown, tea-dust

glaze. Possessing a slight metallic luster, the mattesurfaced glaze covers the bowl inside and out, excepting only the base, the interior of the footring, and the lowest portion of the footring’s exterior. The parabola-shaped upper edge of a horizontal interruption in the glaze on the rounded wall above the foot indicates that the glaze was applied in multiple dippings, probably two or three. Irregularly shaped interruptions in the glaze on the exterior of the footring, and on the rounded walls adjoining it, mark

the places where the potter held the bow] while dipping it into the glaze. A small splash of glaze with an impressed fingerprint appears in the center of the base. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, perhaps with the aid of a hump mold, and it was fired right side up, standing on its footring. Like its counterpart with russet glaze and brown flecks (no. 16), this bowl figured in Eva Sander’s 1987 study of similarities and differences between dark-glazed Ding wares and related wares from the Cizhou kilns." Happily, the study showed its chemical composition to be consistent with that of white Ding sherds retrieved from Ding kiln sites, confirming its identification. Although the tea-dust glaze had been used since Tang times (see no. 6), this bowl represents its only known appearance on a Ding vessel. The extreme rarity of the glaze type in Ding ware suggests that this bowl was not intended as a tea-dust-glazed vessel, but as a black-glazed one. As mentioned above, most Song-type dark glazes pass through a tea-dust phase in the kiln; if underfired, the glaze can mature tea-

dust rather than black. This bowl resembles the Nelson-Atkins Museum’s covered jar (no. 17) in having an unglazed base, a characteristic that sets it apart from the previous bowls (14-16). Although the significance, if any, that attaches to the differing treatment of the bases remains unknown, the point deserves exploration, as the bases of virtually all white Ding bowls are glazed,

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

115

even those of tenthand eleventh-century bowls that were fired right side up, before the introduction and widespread usage of the fushao, or upside down, firing technique. This bowl also has a fingerprint on its otherDetail, no. 18 wise unglazed base. Whether the small dab of glaze was consciously placed there to receive the fingerprint, was accidentally splashed there and accidentally took the imprint, or was unwittingly transferred there on the potter’s fingertip in handling the bowl is unknown. White Ding bowls, by contrast, seldom show a fingerprint on the base. Although many white Ding bowls have fingernail impressions in the exterior wall of the footring as a result of the potter’s firm grasp when dipping the bowl into the glaze, such fingernail impressions never show the precise, regular placement of the fingerprints on the dark-glazed bowls. Curious as it is, the fingerprint may reflect no more than the consciously adopted and well-practiced manner in which potters—or perhaps a single potter— grasped the bowls while dipping them. The lack of meaningful quantities of hard data concerning dark-glazed Ding ware prevents precise attributions. The attribution of this bowl to the late eleventh or early twelfth century rests on the rise to

popularity in the late Northern Song period of Ding bowls with gently rounded walls. 1 Eva Sander, “A Comparative Study of Northern DarkGlazed Stoneware Bowls from the Song Dynasty,” unpublished research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an internship in the Harvard University Art Museums’ Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 1987.

19 SHALLOW TION

OF

SEGMENTED DUCKS

DISH

SWIMMING

WITH

DECORA-

AMIDST

LOTUSES

Jin dynasty, probably late 12th—early 13th century Dark brown Ding ware: porcelaneous stoneware with dark olive brown glaze over decoration molded in thread relief Probably from the kilns at East or West Yanchuan village, Quyang county, Hebei province H, 3.¢ i

Dian,

P70

116

band of leiwen, or squared spirals, that borders the in-

terior of the dish to the double bowstring lines that define its floor. Described in thread-relief lines, a

scene of a duck swimming in a pond under blossoming lotuses embellishes the floor. Its head turned to peer over its back, the duck swims towards the viewer’s right, creating ripples in the water that fills the lower part of the scene; rising from the water,

the lotuses occupy the upper part, a blossom and an opening bud in the center framed by a large leaf in profile at either side. The identical scenes in the wedge-shaped lobes take their inspiration from the scene in the central medallion. In each lobe a duck swims toward the viewer’s left, its head turned to

look over its back; rippling water appears below and lotuses above, the lotuses arranged with a large leaf on the left and a blossom on the night framing two opening buds in the center. The exterior is undecorated. The dish was turned over a hump mold, the potter shaping the exterior and cutting the footring by hand. The color of soy sauce, a dark brown glaze covers the dish inside and out, except for the bottom of the footring, where the snow white body clay is exposed. The glaze was applied by dipping, care being taken to cover those areas where the potter erasped the footring. The dish was fired right side up, standing on its footring. Vessels of this shape are generally termed pan (shallow dishes) in Chinese. Doubtless originating in the Five Dynasties period, such vessels rose to popularity in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, occurring in white Ding ware and in imperial Ru ware. Although related to this one in shape, lateNorthern Song pan dishes of white Ding ware typically have a more strongly vertical rim and a footring that is larger in proportion to the mm than is this one (as the foot of most white Ding vessels is larger in proportion to the vessel than that of most darkglazed ones). While they may sport notched rims, white Ding bowls and dishes from the late Northern Song period seldom have segmented interiors, the latter feature becoming prominent during the succeeding Jin dynasty. In form, this dish resembles an open blossom, the notches 1n its rim separating one petal from the next. Aesthetically, the segmented decorative scheme resonates with the segmented form, the discrete, repeating scenes underscoring the

ont

R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection

Set atop a short, wide footring, this shallow dish has a broad, flat floor encircled by thin walls that curve gracefully upward at the edges. The seven notches in the rim gently segment the dish into seven lobes; a thread-relief line accentuates the separation of contiguous lobes, the line descending from the single

[2341]

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

division of the dish into lobes.

19 Representing ducks in a lotus pond, the decorative scheme borrows a theme popular in painting of the late Northern Song. The duck occasionally appears in the ornament of Tang silver—sometimes 1n churning waters along with fish and dragons, sometimes in inhabited vine scrolls along with an array of quadrupeds; by the Song dynasty, it had been paired with the lotus, with which it has since customarily been linked. Because they are believed to mate for

life and to languish and die if separated, ducks symbolize conjugal fidelity in traditional China. Native

to China, the lotus was celebrated in the ancient po-

etry of the Shijing [Book of Songs]. It made its debut in the visual arts of the Han dynasty, but became a staple only with the rise of Buddhism. In the secular realm, the lotus was regarded as an emblem of purity and perfection. One of the “flowers of the four seasons,” it stands for summer, grouped together with the peony, chrysanthemum, and plum, which symbolize, respectively, spring, autumn, and winter. The key fret border derives from the leiwen, or squared

spirals, that embellish the backgrounds of Shang and Zhou ritual bronze vessels; with the antiquarian 1nterests of Northern Song, the leiwen pattern was introduced into the repertory of the decorative arts, along with a number of other classical forms and motifs." Leiwen bands frequently appear on white Ding vessels from the late eleventh century onward; they

seldom appear on dark-glazed Ding vessels, for the simple reason that the latter seldom have relief decoration. Although black and russet Ding ware are mentioned in the literature at least as early as the fourteenth century, Ding vessels with dark brown glaze over molded decoration seem not to be recorded. Even if some modern authors term these rare dark brown pieces zi Ding, they almost certainly are not the wares so named by Cao Zhao in his Gegu yaolun of 1388; had he meant wares of this type, he would presumably have commented on the molded decoration. Despite the lack of mention in ancient records, a sherd from a wan bowl with caramel glaze over

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

117

covered at the Yanchuan kiln site in 1980, confirm-

ing the manufacture of such wares at the Ding kilns.* In addition, three related bowls with dark brown

glaze over molded floral decoration were recovered

in Jilin province in 1975, from a context believed to

date to the Jin dynasty.’ This dish was clearly shaped over a hump mold, which defined the form and imparted the decoration. Because they promoted efficiency by mechanizing the processes of shaping and decorating, such molds were increasingly used for fashioning dishes and bowls from the time of their introduction in the late eleventh century onward. By permitting the manufacture of pieces of identical size, shape, and decoration, such molds also enabled the kilns to produce matching sets of ceramic ware, a phenomenon that must have appealed to the refined taste of the late Northern Song. Coincidentally, standardization of size and shape assumed technical importance at the Ding kilns in the late eleventh century as the kilns adopted the fushao firing technique, in which the pieces were stacked upside down in their saggars, smaller ones nested under larger ones. To fit properly on its support ring in the saggar, each vessel had to be of precisely the right diameter; to allow proper seating of all pieces in the saggar, each one had to be of precisely the nght height and profile, as well. Although it was fired right side up, this dish was nevertheless created with a mold, using the most advanced

and efficient method of the day. Even though individual elements in the decor of white Ding vessels from the late eleventh and early twelfth century are often naturalistically rendered, the decorative schemes themselves remain mere ornament, lacking the pictorial focus, composition, and space that would transform them into representational scenes. With their well-ordered depictions and their suggestions of recession into three-dimensional space, the scenes on this dish show a concern with pictorial description unknown in the Song. Both the segmentation and the advanced pictorial style place this dish well into the Jin dynasty and suggest a date of manufacture in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. Pieces of this type are exceptionally rare. A related bowl in The Saint Louis Art Museum has six molded floral panels surrounding a floor embellished with two fish swimming amidst rolling waves;* a bowl in the collection of Simon Kwan, Hong Hong, has six molded floral panels surrounding a floor embellished with a flowering chrysanthemum plant.° The Saint Louis and Hong Kong bowls are close in shape and style to the bowls excavated in Jilin province. They

118

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

differ from this exceptionally fine bowl from the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Collection in having an unglazed mouth and a fully glazed footring, irrefutable evidence that they were fired upside down. 1 Fora discussion of this phenomenon, see Mowry, China’s Renaissance in Bronze, pp. 9-11. 2 See Zhongguo taoci bianji weiyuanhui, Dingyao, n.p., pl. 143.

3 Liu Yanping, “Jiaozang ‘zi Ding’ yinhua wan” [A Cache with Molded ‘Zi Ding’ Bowls],

Wenwu

8 (1985): 93-94;

one bowl is also illustrated in Zhongguo taoci bianji welyuanhui, Dingyao, n.p., pl. 113.

4 See St. Louis Art Museum, The St. Louis Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (St. Louis, 1975), p. 284

(998:1940). LA

molded floral decor (within a leiwen border) was re-

See Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, pp. 88-89, no. 26.

2O BOWL

WITH

NOTCHED

RIM

Northern Song period, 11th—early 12th century Russet Yaozhou ware: light gray stoneware with russetsurfaced dark brown glaze From the Huangpu kiln complex, Tongchuan, Yaozhou county, Shaanxi province Hh. 76-cne Demi,

36.7 cm

The Scheinman Collection

[115]

The rounded walls of this wan bowl arc gracefully upward from the small, circular footring, terminating in a thin lip with five evenly spaced notches. Defined by a ring about its perimeter, the flat floor coincides with the base on the underside. A lustrous russet glaze covers the bowl inside and out, excepting only the bottom of the footring and a portion of the base, both of which assumed a grayish buff skin during firing. A horizontal interruption in the glaze on the rounded wall above the foot indicates that the glaze was applied in multiple dippings. The bow] was turned on the potter’s wheel, perhaps with the aid of a hump mold," and it was fired right side up, standing on its footring. Best known in the Northern Song period for their celadon-glazed stonewares, the Yaozhou kilns trace their origins to the Huangpu kiln of the Tang dynasty. Not far removed from Tongchuan, in central Shaanxi province, the Huangpu kiln was celebrated in Tang times for its prodigious output of black- and tea-dust-glazed ceramics (see nos. 6 and 7)

20

and, to a lesser extent, for its white- and celadon-

glazed stonewares. By the Northern Song, the Huangpu kiln had perfected a variety of celadon ware with carved floral decoration under a thick but transparent and lustrous glaze; the ware appealed to the aristocratic taste of the day and was apparently supplied to the palace as tribute ware in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries;” like the Ding

kilns, however, the Yaozhou kilns were never classed

as imperial kilns. Even after celadon wares became their mainstay, the Yaozhou kilns continued the production of both white and dark wares throughout the Song and Jin periods. In fact, excavations undertaken in 1984 revealed that the Huangpu kilns pro-

duced russet-glazed stonewares in abundance, second in quantity only to the celadons; the quantity of black-glazed wares trailed that of russet ware, as

white wares trailed black ware.?

Despite their prestige, Yaozhou wares did not garner a place on the list of “the five great wares of Song” (as compiled by later collectors and connoisseurs), and thus they were almost entirely forgotten until the mid-twentieth century, when archaeological excavations established their place of manufacture and their importance in the history of Song ceramics. Since Eastern and Western collectors alike have traditionally preferred subtly colored wares, the celadons were the first Yaozhou wares to attract

widespread interest and attention; black- and russetglazed wares largely escaped notice until recently, and are thus poorly represented in museum and private collections. Though they differ in the clay used for their bodies, russet-glazed Yaozhou wares and russet-glazed Ding wares (nos. 12-16) were no doubt produced at the same time and for the same market. The two wares thus boast similar shapes, as they reflect similar influences from the black and dark brown lacquer that was popular during the Song. Apart from subtle differences 1n shape and glaze color, the chief characteristic distinguishing the two wares is the color of their clay bodies: Ding ware bodies are pure white, while Yaozhou ware bodies are pale gray, the exposed body clay often with a buff-colored skin. The glaze on Yaozhou pieces often exhibits a slightly redder hue, and it typically has a subtle metallic luster that is not present in the Ding glaze. The 1984 excavations established that large numbers of russet-glazed bowls with rounded walls and notched rims were made at the Huangpu kilns during the Northern Song period. Such russet-glazed bowls were apparently fired at a temperature slightly higher than that employed for other wares produced at the kilns, resulting in pieces that are hard and resonant.* The dating of this bowl rests on the similarity of its footring to those on celadon-glazed wares

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

119

produced at the Huangpu kilns during the eleventh and early twelfth century. Square in section, such footrings have relatively heavy walls of uniform thickness, and they are set at a slight angle so they appear to flare lightly. A closely related bowl was recovered from an undated context in Bin county, Shaanxi province, in

—

the 1950s.°

Numerous hump molds were discovered at the Huangpu kiln site, some plain, some with carved decoration; see

Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan

loo

WN

Yaozhouyao, p. 26, fig. 15, nos. 1-3, 6-7. Mary Tregear, Song Ceramics (New York,

1982), p. 106.

Zhuo Zhenxi, “Yaozhouyao yizhi taoci di xin faxian”

[New Discoveries of Ceramics at the Yaozhou Kiln Site], Kaogu yu wenwu 1 (1987): 32-33.

4 Ibid., p. 37.

5 See Shaanxi sheng bowuguan [Shaanxi Provincial Museum|, Yaoci tulu [An Ilustrated Handbook of Yaozhou Wares] (Being,

1956), n.p., no. 25.

al SMALL AND

BOWL

ABSTRACT

WITH

SEGMENTED

LIP

DECOR

Northern Song period, probably 11th century Black Yaozhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration painted in overglaze iron oxide From the Huangpu kiln complex, Tongchuan, Yaozhou county, Shaanxi province H. 5.9 cm; Diam.

12.0 cm

Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr.

[117]

This small wan bowl stands on a tall but very thin, circular footring. Its walls expand outward, then rise steeply, almost vertically, to the flaring lip, which sports six indentations that give the bowl the form of an open blossom. Appearing black where thick, a dark brown glaze covers the bowl’s interior and exterior, including parts of the outside of the footring; the exposed body clay on the base and inside of the footring formed a buff skin during firing. Descending from the lip to the floor, eleven russet stripes embellish the bowl’s interior; each vertical stripe has one or two short branches that arc outward from the stripe’s midpoint. A russet haze clouds the surface of the dark glaze on the floor and on portions of the exterior; irregularly placed brown spots punctuate the otherwise undecorated exterior. As indicated by the encircling potting marks inside and out, the bowl was wheel-turned, after which the foliations in the

flaring lip were imparted by pushing a blunt-tipped instrument against the moist clay. The glaze was applied by dipping; the potter painted the abstract designs on the glaze surface in iron oxide, probably with a fingertip rather than with a brush. The russet spots on the rounded walls just above the footring may be the result of an accidental transfer of iron oxide from the potter’s hands to the bowl while handling it during painting. The bowl was fired nght side up, standing on its footring. Closely related in both chemistry and appearance to the reddish brown skin on russet vessels (nos. 12-14, 20), the markings on this bowl represent the

excess iron oxide that the saturated glaze could not absorb during firing. Because they lie on the surface, the shghtly matte stripes interrupt the glaze’s luster when the bowl 1s rotated through the light. The silvery streaks within the stripes resulted from the recrystallization of some of the iron oxide. A slightly more pronounced reddish tinge and a metallic luster (apart from the silvery streaks) difterentiate the iron-oxide markings on Yaozhou wares from those of dark-glazed ceramics produced at other kilns. The painting of the designs and the reliance upon a variety of stripes also distinguish Yaozhou wares; other northern kilns typically feature abstract splashes or painted designs of blossoming plants or birds in flight on their dark-glazed wares. The 1959 excavations at the Huangpu kiln site yielded dark-glazed Yaozhou bowls of this exact shape; subsequent investigations there in 1973

brought to light sherds of black-glazed bowls with russet stripes identical to those enlivening this rare bowl from the Falk Collection, leaving no doubt about the place of manufacture.* Impressed when the potter grasped the bowl to dip it in the glaze, the

120

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

deep fingernail marks in the exterior wall of the footring not only add a human touch, but further

link the bowl to the Yaozhou kilns, most of whose

wares show such marks. The similarity of the bowl’s flat base and its tall, straight, thin-walled footring to those of celadon-glazed bowls recovered from the mid-Northern Song stratum at Huangpu supports

the attribution to the eleventh century.’ This bowl’s eleventh-century date of manufacture

suggests that the Yaozhou kilns may have been the first in northern China to embellish black-glazed vessels with rust-brown decoration. If so, the Yaozhou

potters likely drew inspiration from the work of their Tang forebears at the Huangpu kiln. Tang experiments with two-color decorative schemes at those kilns include brown-glazed pieces with light splashes in the manner of ceramics made at the Duandian kiln in Lushan county* (compare nos. 8-9), as well as pieces with designs in dark glaze on a light-toned, unglazed background.°

p. 104, fig. 121 (but note that the bowl has been misattributed to the 12th—13th century in the Tregear book). 4 See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, yaozhi, vol. 2, pl. 84, nos. 1-6.

Tangdai Huangpu

5 See ibid., pls. go—-124.

2 CONICAL AND

BOWL

RUSSET

WITH

FLARING

LIP

STRIPES

Northern Song period, 11th—12th century Black Yaozhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings painted in overglaze iron oxide From the Huangpu kiln complex, Tongchuan, Yaozhou county, Shaanxi province H. 4.4 cm; Diam.

14.8 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

1 See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan Yaozhouyao, p. 21, fig. 13, no. 8.

[1942.185.432]

2 See Zhuo Zhenxi and Lu Jianguo, “Yaozhouyao yizhi diaocha fajue xin shouhuo” [New Results in the Investigation and Excavation of the Kiln Site at Yaozhou],

Springing from a small circular footring, the walls of this conical wan bowl rise steeply to the lip, where they flare hghtly outward, giving the impression ofa thickened lip. A thick coating of dark brown glaze

Kaogu yu wenwu 3 (1980): $6, fig. 2, no. 4;

3 See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan Yaozhouyao, p. 19, fig. 12, no. 1 and pl. 9, no. 3; Zhong-

guo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe [The People’s Fine Arts Press of Shanghai, China], Yaozhouyao

[Yaozhou Ware], Zhongguo taoci quanji [A Compendium of Chinese Ceramics] series, vol. 10 (Kyoto, 1985), n-p.,

pl. 37; Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, p. 213, nos. 407-8; Tregear, Song Ceramics,

fully covers the bowl, including part of the exterior

wall of the footring; the exposed body clay on the base and on the bottom and inside of the footring shows the putty-colored skin that formed during firing. Attenuated, U-shaped stripes alternate with vertical stripes in an abstract, rust-brown pattern around the bowl’s interior; the U-shaped stripes are arranged with their closed ends at the lip and their

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed

Ceramics

121

open ends at the bowl’s midsection. The depressed floor is undecorated; the exterior too 1s

basically undecorated, though a few russet splashes appear there. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, perDetail, no. 22 haps with the aid of a hump mold; the glaze was applied by dipping, after which the decoration was painted in iron oxide, probably with a fingertip. The bowl was fired right side up, standing on its footring. Conical bowls with straight but steeply raked walls and with a lightly everted lip evolved at the Huangpu kiln in the Tang dynasty;" a footring that is wide in relation to the mouth distinguishes Tang bowls from Song ones, as does a very shallow base. (In fact, the foot is solid on some Tang bowls from the Huangpu kiln.) Among the Song-dynasty output of the Yaozhou kilns, bowls of this shape occur in celadon ware,” russet-glazed ware,’ and black-glazed ware with rust-brown stripes.* The recovery of intact bowls of virtually identical shape and decoration, along with related sherds, from the Song stratum at the Huangpu kiln site substantiates the identification of this bowl as Yaozhou ware. The dating of the bow] rests on the similarity of its short, relatively thick-walled footring to those of Yaozhou celadon-glazed bowls produced in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. 1 See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan i)

‘aozhouyao, p. 14, fig. 9, nos. 3, 9. See ibid., p. 21, fig. 19, no. 9.

3 See Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, pp. 208-9, no. 86. 4 Zhuo Zhenxi and Lu Jianguo, “Yaozhouyao yizhi diaocha fajue xin shouhuo,” p. $4, fig. 1, no. 23; Zhongsuo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Yaozhouyao, fi Puy Pl. OF.

122.

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

ms SMALL AND

BOWL

WHITE

WITH

FOLIATE

LIP

RIBS

Northern Song period, probably 11th century Probably black Yaozhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze over trailed white-slip ribs Perhaps from the Huangpu kiln complex, Tongchuan, Yaozhou county, Shaanxi province H.. .427 cm: Diam.

116-cm.

The Art Institute of Chicago

[Rx17560.88]

Rising steeply from the circular footring, the gently rounded walls of this small wan bowl terminate in a flaring lip that sports six indentations. The vertical white ribs descending from the indentations to the floor subtly partition the bowl and give it the form of an open blossom. A dark brown glaze covers the entire vessel, save the bottom of the footring, where the light gray body clay is exposed. Though it appears black, the glaze’s actual black-coftee brown color is revealed over the lip and ribs, where gravity caused the glaze to thin during firing. The bowl was

turned on the potter’s wheel, after which the foliations in the flaring lip were imparted by pulling a taut string or pushing a blunt-tipped instrument against the moist clay. The ribs were extruded onto the surface in a white, kaolinic slip. Fingerprints of the potter on the exterior wall of the footring indicate the position in which the bowl was held when dipped into the glaze. The bowl was fired right side up, standing on its footring.

This bow], like the one from the Falk Collection (no. 21), derives its shape from Tang silver’ and from

black lacquers made in the late Tang and early Northern Song periods.* The indented ribs of such lacquer and silver vessels also inspired this bowl’s ribs of trailed slip. Although identical bowls with foliated lip and vertical ribs of trailed slip have not been illustrated in the literature on the Song kilns at Huangpu, a number of characteristics suggest an attribution to the Yaozhou kilns. First, dark-glazed bowls with foliate rims have been excavated from the Song stratum of the Yaozhou kiln site at Huangpu.’ Second, deep bowls with white ribs have been excavated from the Tang stratum at the Huangpu kiln site, indicating that appliqué white ribs were used as decoration on wares made there beginning at an early date.* Third, the tall footring is square in section, with walls of uniform thickness, and it is set at a slight angle, so that it appears to flare lightly. Fourth, the base is flat

4 See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Tangdai Huangpu yaozhi, vol. 2, pl. 47, fig. 4.

5 See Lovell, “Sung and Yiian Monochrome Lacquers in the Freer Gallery, n.p., pl. 9, fig. 15. 99

Nn

See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan Yaozhouyao, p. 19, fig. 12, no. 1 and pl. 9, no. 3; Krahl,

Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1,

p. 213, nos. 407-8; Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 104, fig. 121 (but note that the bowl has been misattributed to the

12th—13th century in the Tregear book).

2 C7VOID AND

23 Photograph © 1995, The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reserved.

and it meets the footring at a ninety-degree angle. Fifth, the base and the inside of the footring are fully glazed, a feature that occurs on russet-glazed stonewares produced at a number of northern kilns, but that seldom occurs on black-glazed stonewares produced at kilns other than those at Yaozhou. Sixth, a celadon-glazed bowl that was formerly in the Eumorfopoulos Collection and that gives every appearance of having been made at the Yaozhou kilns in the eleventh century shares many of the features of this bowl, including its foliated lip and white ribs.° The attribution to the eleventh century rests on the kinship of the footring to those of celadon-glazed bowls made at the Yaozhou kilns in the midNorthern Song period.° 1 See Kelley, Chinese Gold and Silver in American Collections,

p. 53, no. 19; Zhenjiang shi bowuguan and Shaanxi sheng bowuguan, Tangdai jinyingi, pp. 168, figs. 13-14;

WN

180, figs. 155—6; 181, figs. 172-3; 182, figs. 182-5; 183, fig. 197.

See Hubei Jingzhou diqu bowuguan baoguanzu Jingzhou Regional Museum of Hubei, Preservation Department], “Hubei Jianli xian chutu yipi Tangdai qiqi” [The Recovery of a Group of Tang Lacquers in Jianli County, Hubei],

Wenwu 2 (1982): 93 and pl. 8, nos. 1-2;

Luo Zongzhen, “Huai’an Songmu chutu di qiqi” [The Recovery of Lacquers from a Song Tomb in Huai’an], Wenwu § (1963): pl. 3, no. 7; Lovell, “Sung and Yiian

Monochrome Lacquers in the Freer Gallery,” n.p., pls. 1, letter G; 4, letter A; 6.

3 See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan Yaozhouyao, p. 21, fig. 13, no. 8.

BOTTLE

RUSSET

witTH

EVERTED

Lrr

GLAZE

Northern Song period, probably 11th century Northern russet ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with russet-surfaced dark brown glaze H. 20.9 cm; Diam.

17.5 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane [1942.185.400]

Of strongly ovoid form, this bottle has relatively thick walls that rise rapidly from the circular foot to the bulging shoulder, where they curve inward and ascend to the short, slightly flaring neck with its everted lip. The countersunk base 1s flat and of intermediate depth. A russet-surfaced dark brown glaze covers the exterior of the bottle, stopping just short of the bottom of the foot; the glaze also covers the base and the inside of the footring, leaving only the bottom of the thick footring unglazed. Although the glaze covers the lip and the interior of the neck, the interior of the bottle is unglazed. The bottle was turned on the potter’s wheel in sections that were luted togther before the glaze was applied. It was fired nght side up, standing on its footring. Called ping (bottles) or xiaokou ping (smallmouthed bottles) in Chinese, ovoid bottles are a form natural to the potter, and thus have a long history in China. Ovoid bottles with dished mouths began to appear among the celadon wares produced at

the Yue kilns in the fifth century,’ probably the de-

scendants of the hu storage jars that were a staple of the potter’s art during the Han. The 1971 excavation of a Northern Qi tomb in Pingshan county, Hebei province, yielded a mid-sixth-century bronze ovoid bottle that is the visual link between between the fifth-century Yue bottles and the present one; with its somewhat longer neck and wider lip, and only slightly more attenuated form, it differs but little in

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

123

24 shape from this bottle.* While they do not figure prominently in the repertory of Tang ceramics, such bottles found renewed popularity in the Five Dynasties and Northern Song periods, occurring frequently in porcelains and light-colored stonewares.? When they occur in paintings of the day, such bottles usually appear in the company of ewers, wine cups, and covered meiping storage jars, suggesting that they were used in preparing rice wine for serving.* By

contrast, the same paintings usually present ovoid bottles with dished mouths as vases for cut flowers. 5 Despite its elegant form, this bottle was made for a much more humble clientele than were the wares produced by the Ding and Yaozhou kilns. Its weight— much heavier than a similar vessel in Ding ware, for example—and its light gray body clay indicate that this bottle was produced by one of the many kilns in the Cizhou system, a large group of kilns that were active across north China in the Song, Jin, and Yuan periods. Although they evolved their own distinctive styles, the Cizhou potters also imitated wares produced by the more prestigious Ding kilns. In some cases, the archaeological record is sufficiently complete to allow the attribution of individual pieces to specific kilns; in others, such as this

124

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

one, evidence is too scant to permit attribution to a particular kiln. The

1974 excavation of the tomb of Zhang Min

(near Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province), brought to light two identical ovoid bottles in russet Ding ware of the type that obviously inspired this bottle from the Harvard University Art Museums.° Except for their slightly narrower shoulders, the excavated Ding bottles differ very little from the Harvard bottle on first inspection. In fact, it 1s the white body clay exposed at the square-cut foot of the excavated bottles that distinguishes them as Ding ware, and the light gray body clay visible at the rounded foot of this bottle that identifies it as Cizhou-type ware. The relative weights also differ, of course, the Ding bottles being hghter than the Cizhou-type bottle. The funerary epitaph associated with his tomb states that Zhang Min died during the fourth year of the Xining era of the Song dynasty—a year that corresponds to 1071 in the Western calendar—indicating that the russet Ding bottles were made in the mid-eleventh century. Since potters at the Cizhou family of kilns typically kept abreast of current styles in the wares they imitated, the Harvard bottle presumably also dates to the eleventh century.

Virtually identical bottles are in the

Metropolitan Museum,

New

York,’ and in the National Museum of Korea, Seoul.® Its present whereabouts unknown, a related bottle, also with russet-

skinned glaze but

Detail, no. 24

with a distinct,

slightly flaring footring, was formerly in the collection of Sir Herbert Ingram.” 1 See Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware, p. 39, no. 89.

2 See Hebei sheng bowuguan and Hebei sheng wenwu guanlichu [Hebei Provincial Museum and Hebei Antiquities Preservation Department], “Hebei Pingshan Bei Q1

wo

Cui Ang mu diaocha baogao” [A Report on the Investigation of the Northern Qi Tomb of Cui Ang in Pingshan, Hebei], Wenwu 11 (1973): 37, fig. 22. See Watson,

Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 99, no. 67;

Jiangyin xian wenhuaguan [Jiangyin County Cultural Institute], “Jiangsu Jiangyin Bei Song Ge Hong fugui mu” [The Northern Song Tomb of Ge Hong and His Wife in Jiangyin, Jiangsu], Wenwu ziliao congkan 10 (1987): pl. 7, no. 6; Anyang diqu wenguanhui and Tangyin wenwu baoguansuo [Anyang Regional Antiquities Committee and Tangyin Antiquities Preservation Institute], ““Tangyin Song mu fajue jianbao” [A Brief Report on the Excavation of the Song Tomb at Tangyin], Zhongyuan wenwu 1

oo SMALL

LOBED

JAR

WITH

RUSSET

GLAZE

Northern Song period, probably 11th century Northern russet ware of Cizhou type: ivory-toned stoneware with russet-surfaced dark brown glaze H..6.2:cm; Diam.

10.2.cm

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Avery Brundage Collection [B60 P232|

This small jar rests on a wide footring from which the walls flare and then rise vertically, turning inward at the top to form the flat shoulder. A circular opening in the center of the top gives access to the jar’s interior. Six evenly spaced, vertical indentations in the walls gently segment the jar into six lobes, so that it resembles a melon. A russet-skinned, dark brown

glaze covers the vessel inside and out, including the flat base; only the bottom of the footring remains unglazed, exposing the ivory-toned body clay. The jar was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which the indentations were created by pushing a blunt-tipped instrument against the moist clay. The glaze was applied by dipping. The piece was fired nght side up, standing on its footring. Called by various names in Chinese, small jars of this shape are usually termed shuiyu (water containers). During the Six Dynasties period, potters at the Yue kilns began to make a variety of small jars to contain fresh water for the scholar’s desk —water

(1985): 25, fig. 6.

4 See Hebei sheng wenwu guanlichu and Hebei sheng bowuguan [Hebei Provincial Antiquities Preservation Department and Hebei Provincial Museum], “Hebei Xuanhua Liao bihua mu fajue jianbao” [A Bnef Report on the Excavation of the Liao Tomb with Wall Paintings

Ov

LA

in Xuanhua, Hebei],

Wenwu

8 (1975): 39, figs. 22, 24.

See ibid., fig. 22. See Zhenjiang shi bowuguan, “Zhenjiang shi Nanjiao Bei Song Zhang Min mu,” pl. 4, no. 3; Zhongguo taoci bianji weiyuanhui, Dingyao, n.p., pl. 58. A related russet Ding bottle with a longer neck is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; see Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, rev. ed. (New York, 1989), p. 90, no. 83.

7 See Warren E. Cox,

The Book of Pottery and Porcelain, vol.

I, p. 174, fig. 337. See Oriental Ceramic Society, Sung Dynasty Wares: Chiin and Brown Glazes, exh. cat., Oriental Ceramic Society A”

195§2), p. II, no. 112.

i)

(London,

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

12

\n

\O

8 See Hasebe, So, pp. 130-31, no. 123.

that could be spooned onto the inkstone for preparing ink or transferred to a dish for rinsing the brush. The immediate forerunners of the present jar are the small spherical containers produced during the Tang and Five Dynasties periods, some of which lack any

Village, Dongnanjiao, Xi'an],

Wenwu 6 (1964): 31, fig. 1,

and pls. 8, no. 1, and 11, nos. s—6. 3

See Watson,

Tang and Liao

Ceramics, p. 165, no.

161; Ma,

Qin, Fan, “Xa’an Nanjiao chutu yipi Tangdai ciqi,” pl. 3, no. 4.

trace of a neck.’ Like the foliation of bowl rims, the

segmentation of jars into lobes traces its origins to Tang silver, where vessel forms were often subtly articulated to suggest an open blossom or a ripe melon. Potters began to segment ceramic vessels during the Tang,’ though the practice became widespread only in the tenth and eleventh centuries. It remains unknown whether or not this small jar originally had a cover. The fully glazed lip suggests that the jar may be complete as it appears today, since covers were usually fired in place in Song times, a custom necessitating that the vessel lip be left unglazed so that cover and vessel would not fuse together in firing (see discussion, no. 17). It is possible, however, that the jar had a cover that was fired separately, permitting the jar lip to be fully glazed. The ivory-toned body and the meticulous finish might tempt some to attribute this jar to the Ding kilns; while not impossible, such an origin seems unlikely on the basis of present evidence, given that the jar’s body is warmer in tone than those of most darkglazed Ding wares, and that its walls are thicker than those of most Ding pieces, with the result that it is heavy compared to most Ding vessels of similar size and shape. In all probability, the jar was made at one of the many Cizhou-type kilns in north China, some of which produced dark-glazed wares astonishingly close in style to those of the Ding kilns. With the glaze covering not only its base, but also the inside and outside of its footring, this jar’s meticulous finish relates it to russet-glazed vessels reliably attributed to the eleventh century, such as the previous ovoid jar (no. 24). Especially popular in ceramic ware in the mid-Northern Song period, the segmentation of the vessel also supports an attribution to the eleventh century. 1 See Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware, pp. 68, no. 214; 75, no. 251; Watson,

Tang and Liao

Ceramics, p. 165,

no. 161; Ma Hong, Qin Huaige, Fan Bingnan, “Xi’an

N

Nanjiao chutu yipi Tangdai ciqi” [The Recovery ofa Group of Tang-Period Stonewares in Nanjiao, Xi’an], Wenbo 1 (1988): pl. 3, no. 2. See Zhenjiang shi bowuguan and Shaanxi sheng

bowuguan, Tangdai jinyingi, pp. 182-3, nos. 182-3, 197-8; X1’an shi wenwu guanli wetyuanhui [Xi’an Mu-

nicipal Antiquities Preservation Committee], “X1’an shi Dongnanjiao Shapo cun chutu yipi Tangdai yinqi” [The Recovery of a Group of Tang Silver Vessels in Shapo

126

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

26 SMALL AND

BOWL

RUSSET

WITH

INVERTED

LIP

GLAZE

Northern Song period, probably 11th century Northern russet ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with russet-surfaced dark brown glaze H. 6.6 cm; Diam.

10.4 cm

Dr. and Mrs. Marvin L. Gordon

Lacking a footring, this elegant bow] rests on its small, circular, slightly convex base. The walls spring directly from the base, rise steeply, and then turn inward at the shoulder, terminating in the inverted lip that surrounds the wide mouth. A lustrous, russetskinned, dark brown glaze covers the entire bow],

stopping roughly one-quarter inch short of the base, where the exposed body clay shows a buff skin. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel and the glaze was applied by dipping. The vessel stood nght side up in firing, resting on its unglazed base. Wide-mouthed bo bowls have strongly vertical walls and are distinguished from conical wan bowls, which have rapidly flaring walls (nos. 14-16, 18, 20). Given the potters’ desire to experiment with new forms, there 1s inevitably some overlap—even confusion—between the two types, but bowls with inverted lip, such as the present example, are invariably termed bo in Chinese. Whatever their secular function might have been, bowls of this distinctive shape are usually called “alms bowls” in English, since in Buddhist works of art they appear both as begging bowls, when held by monks, and as offering bowls, when presented to the Buddha by apsaras (minor attendant deities of winged human form). Perhaps of foreign origin, the type appeared in China in the Six Dynasties period and soared to popularity in the Tang, as indicated by the many Tang examples preserved in the Shds6-in, in Nara, Japan." The type persisted into the Song, albeit with diminished popularity, when it was made in lacquer* and ceramic ware.? The light gray body clay visible on the base indicates that this handsome bowl was made by one of the many kilns in north China producing Cizhoutype ware. The bowl’s meticulous finish—with the

97a &b Two

SMALL

WITH

RUSSET

GLOBULAR

JARS

GLAZE

Northern Song to Jin period, probably 12th century Northern russet ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with russet-surfaced dark brown glaze H. 10,0 em: Diani.

12.5 ci

LEFT: Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane [1942.185.401] RIGHT: The Scheinman Collection

glaze extending virtually to the base, where it terminates neatly in a straight edge— points to a date of manufacture in the eleventh century, as does the bowl’s similarity in shape to a gingbai porcelain example recovered from a Liao Kingdom tomb sealed before 1079.* Of identical size and shape, a bo bowl of russetglazed Ding ware is in the Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong.° 1 See Sh6s6-in jimusho

[Sh6sd-in Office], Shdsd-in no toki

[Ceramics in the Shds6-in| (Tokyo, 1971), pls. 83-114.

2 See René-Yvon Lefebvre d’Argencé, ed., Treasures from the Shanghai Museum: 6,000 Years of Chinese Art, exh. cat., Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (San Francisco, 1983), pp. 102, 162, no. 85. 3 See Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 110,

no. 105; Zhang Jian, “Luoyang Andong Songdai jiaocang ciqi” [A Cache of Song-Period Ceramics from Andong, Luoyang], Wenwu 12 (1986): 70, fig. Io.

4 See Aohan qi wenhuaguan [Aohan Region Cultural Institute], “Aohan qi Baitazi Liao mu” [A Liao Tomb at Baitazi, Aohan Region], Kaogu 2 (1978): 121, fig. 4, no.

6, and pl. 10, no. 3.

s See Tsui Museum of Art, The Tsui Museum of Art, exh. cat., Tsui Museum of Art (Hong Kong, 1991), n.p., no.

29.

[95]

Virtually identical, each of these small globular jars has a lightly compressed, spherical container set atop a delicately splayed, circular footring. Shghtly larger in diameter than the footring, the mouth of each boasts a subtly raised lip that echoes the footring, thus completing the vessel’s symmetrical form. A russet-skinned, dark brown glaze covers the exterior of each jar, stopping about one inch short of the footring; the dark brown glaze on the interiors shows only random splashes of the russet skin. The exposed body clay on the base, footring, and lowest portion of vessel wall fired a light gray. Potting marks inside and out reveal that these jars were turned on the wheel, as the even glaze edge indicates that the glaze was applied in a single dipping. The jars were fired right side up. Guan jars of this type probably trace their origin to the small bronze wine vessels, known as pou, that

were popular during the Warring States period.’ Such jars found renewed favor in the Tang dynasty, appearing in silver* and in celadon-glazed Yue ware. 3 Tang silver examples sometimes have covers, suggesting that some ceramic pieces may have been similarly equipped. The type persisted through the Five Dynasties period* and into the Song, when it was produced at a number of kilns, including the Ding

kilns.* A low footring that is wide in proportion to

the jar identifies Tang and early Song ceramic examples. Probably not made as a pair, these virtually identical jars represent two examples from a large set of identical pieces, most of which have now perished. The light gray stoneware bodies indicate that these jars were made at one of the many kilns in the Cizhou system. The footrings’ height, narrow diameter, subtle splay, and precise cutting relate these jars to Cizhou-ware vessels made in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries,° as do the jars’ unglazed lower portions. Tang potters often left the lower portions of their vessels unglazed (nos. 3-11); generally

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

127

preferring a more meticulous finish, potters of the Northern Song typically glazed the bases and footrings of their wares, or at least extended the glaze to the top of the footring. In the late Northern Song period, potters at the Cizhou family of kilns revived

the practice of leaving the lower portions of vessels unglazed. The practice increased kiln efficiency, and thus profits, as vessels with unglazed lower portions required less cautious handling before firing, and they presented less chance of their glaze running off the footring during firing—possibly fusing the vessel to the kiln furniture, and thus resulting in loss of the vessel. Scheinman Collection jar (only)

PROVENANCE:

Lord Cunliffe Collection

PUBLISHED: Oniental Ceramic Society, Sung Dynasty Wares: Chiin and Brown Glazes, exh. cat., Oriental Ceramic Society (London, 1952), p. 12, no. 117; Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire,

me

p. 74, no. $1; Klapthor, “Chinese Ceramics from the Collection of Peter and Irene Scheinman,” p. 59, fig. 17. From the Warring States period, a small pou wine jar in the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection at the Harvard University Art Museums has a reticulated outer wall that

i)

is embellished with turquoise inlays (1943.52.70).

See Gyllensvard, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe

Ln

aN

Ov

Collection, 144-45, no. 93.

128

See Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware, p. 53, no. 134. See ibid., p. 60, no. 171. See Zhongguo taoci bianji weiyuanhui, Dingyao, n.p.,

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

pl. 6; Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 81,

fig. 74.

6 See Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the

Kwan Collection, pp. 336-37, no. 150; Yutaka Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern

China: Tz’u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D., exh. cat., Indianapolis Museum of Art (Indianapolis, 1980), pp. TIO“1i, Ho, 43.

yes EWER WITH DISHED MOUTH, DOUBLE-STRAND HANDLE, AND SEGMENTED

ARCHING

SPOUT

Five Dynasties to Northern Song period, 1oth—11th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze H. 23.5 cm; Diam.

12.9 cm

The Scheinman Collection

[117]

Slightly bowed, the thin, almost vertical walls of this ewer rise from the wide, lightly splayed footring and then turn sharply inward to form the angled shoulder, a slight ridge distinguishing shoulder from body. Springing from a low-relief band at its base, the very slender, waisted neck culminates in a dished mouth

with indented sides. The double-strand handle arches upward from the shoulder, rejoining the vessel at the midpoint of the neck; a curved, segmented spout springs from the outer edge of the shoulder, opposite

Collection has a ringed neck that might be considered a distant relative.* The combination of light gray stoneware and dark

brown glaze indicates that this ewer was made at one

of the Cizhou kilns. The cylindrical shape, the long curving spout, and the arched handle joined to the neck suggest that the ewer could have been made as early as the tenth century, though the pairing of dished mouth and attenuated neck point to the late tenth or early eleventh century as the more likely date of manufacture. Dark-glazed ewers of this type are rare, the shape occurring more frequently in celadon ware. A related but unpublished ewer belonging to the Christensen Fund is on loan to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (BL77 PIO).

—

PUBLISHED: Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire, p. 75, no. $3; Klapthor, “Chinese Ceramics from the Collection of Peter and Irene Scheinman,” p. 59, fig. 16. See Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware, p. 53,

the handle. The ewer was turned on the wheel in

i)

no.

uated neck in the tenth and early eleventh centuries,

especially in bottles and vases with relatively straight sides and angled shoulders. The segmentation seen in this ewer’s spout is a rare feature in Five Dynasties and Song ceramics, although a tenth- to eleventhcentury white kendi pouring vessel in the Meiyintang

See Watson,

Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 124, pl. 96;

d’Argencé, Chinese Ceramics in the Avery Brundage Collec-

several sections that were luted together after drying,

the ridge at the shoulder and the relief band at the base of the neck indicating the joins. The handle and spout were luted in place after the other components had been assembled. A dark brown glaze covers the vessel, appearing black where thick; the exposed body clay on the flat base and on the interior and bottom of the footring fired buff. The ewer was fired right side up. Inspired by metal prototypes, vessels with a flat or lightly angled shoulder became popular in the tenth century, especially in wares made at the Yue kilns.’ The spouts on such tenth- and eleventh-century ewers typically spring from the shoulder rather than from the body, and are curved, and longer than those of Tang-period examples (nos. 6 and 10). Differing from its Six Dynasties and Tang forebears (nos. 1, 6, and 10), the double-strand handle connects at the neck rather than at the lip in such ewers; the arrangement establishes a visual tension between the arched handle and the dished mouth or flaring lip, a tension that is virtually always left unresolved, as it is in this ewer.” Potters at the Cizhou kilns experimented with the pairing of dished mouth and atten-

138.

tion, pp. 68-69, pl. 29B, 72-73, pl. 31c; Krahl, Chinese

Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, pp. 234-35, no. 423; Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the Kwan

Collection, pp. 140-41, no. §2.

3 See Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush, pp. 42-43, no. 9,

fO-§1, 0. 13.

4 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, pp. 190-91, no. 325.

27 CuPp

AND

CUPSTAND

WITH

BLACK

GLAZE

Northern Song period, probably 11th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray

stoneware with dark brown glaze Caps (AL. 405 ee Cupstand:

Doin.

Gey aii

HH, 7.2 em; Diam.

11.4 en

Cup and stand: H. 10.2 cm Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr. [102]

This rare set comprises a small cup and matching cupstand. The curving walls of the cup spring from the small, circular footring, and rise organically to the straight lip. Appearing black where thick and caramel

where thin, a dark brown glaze covers the entire

cup, save the bottom of the footring. The cupstand resembles a small bow] sitting on a high-footed

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

129

A related black-glazed stand recovered in the

1986 excavations at the Duandian kiln site, Lushan

county, in Henan province, has a floor separating the interior of the receptacle from the saucer’s hollow foot (compare nos. 12 and 13). The presence of the floor has led Chinese archaeologists to identify the vessel as a lamp (deng), though it may, in fact, have been a cupstand.* The present cup resembles a black-glazed Ding

cup in the Meiyintang Collection,’ while the stand shows a kinship to the russet-glazed Ding stand in the Gordon Collection (no. 12), the similarity suggesting that the pair was made in imitation of a

black-glazed Ding set. The gray stoneware bodies distinguish this cup and stand from Ding ware, how-

ever, as do the stand’s deep saucer and its lack ofa floor between receptacle and footring. Although the Yaozhou kilns produced darkglazed cupstands with deep saucers and receptacles

that open directly into the hollow foot, their proportions differ markedly from those of this example.*

130

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

i)

1 For a recently excavated silver cup-and-cupstand set from the Northern Song period, see Yang, Gongyi meishu bian: Jin yin boli falang qi, pp. 28, 47, no. 98. See Henan sheng wenwu yanjiusuo and Lushan xian renmin wenhua guan [Henan Provincial Antiquities Re-

search Institute and Lushan County People’s Cultural Museum], “Henan Lushan Duandianyao di xin faxian” [New Discoveries at the Duandian Kiln, Lushan County, Henan Province], Huaxia Kaogu 6¢ $9, fig. IT, nO. 16.

by

hollow, circular foot that is lightly splayed. The receptacle rises from the center of the saucer, its profile resembling a pair of parentheses; without a floor, the receptacle opens directly into the saucer’s hollow footring. Identical to that on the cup, a lustrous dark brown glaze covers the entire cupstand, excepting only the bottom of the footring, whose edge is neatly chamfered inside and out. The exposed body clay at the bottom of the footrings on both cup and stand fired a light gray. The cup was turned on the potter’s wheel; the cupstand’s receptacle and saucer were separately turned, and then luted together after drying. The glaze was applied by dipping, small smudges on the exterior wall of the cup near the footring indicating the points where the potter held it during application. The cup and stand must have been fired at the same time, each standing right side up on its own footring. The even tonality of the glaze on these pieces indicates not only that they were made at the same time, but that they were conceived as a set from the beginning. Produced in quantity during the Song, matching sets are exceptionally rare today;' this cup and stand number among the few known examples.

1 (1988): $1, fig. 8, no.

See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, pp. 202-3, no. 353.

4 See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan Yaozhouyao, p. 23, fig. 14, no. 4. A

saucer. Of circular form, the saucer rests on a tall,

Lacking other evidence, the similarity to Ding ware, along with the gray stoneware body and lustrous black glaze, point to one of the many Cizhou kilns as this set’s place of manufacture (compare nos. 28 and 30). Both the similarity of the cupstand to the one in the Gordon Collection and the meticulous application of the glaze, even to the undersides of the pieces, support the attribution to the eleventh century. There is a closely related black-glazed cupstand in the collection of the Newark Museum.°

Accession number 41.1854; see Valrae Reynolds, “2000 Years of Chinese Ceramics,” The Newark Museum Quarterly, vol. 28, nos. 3-4 (Summer/Fall 1977): 26, no. 21.

o0) CENSER

OR

LAMP

WITH

BLACK

GLAZE

Northern Song period, 11th—early 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze H,.27.6 nit Dim.

172 ei

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Avery Brundage Collection [B60 P1590]

Of dramatic profile, this vessel comprises a widelipped cylindrical container set atop an inverted trumpet-mouthed base. Flaring at the bottom, the steeply angled base culminates in two accordion-fold ribs at its top; resembling a conical bowl, the lower portion of the container supports the bowed walls, which rise vertically, terminating in the strongly everted, slightly down-curved lip. A dark brown glaze, appearing black where thick, covers the exterior; the interior of the base is unglazed, as is the interior of the container, though patches of glaze appear in the latter, splashed on by accident during application. The exposed body clay fired a light grayish buff. The vessel was wheel-turned in sections that were luted together after drying. Following an additional period of drying, the glaze was applied, its even lower edge suggesting that the bottom of the foot was wiped with a cloth to remove excess. The piece was fired right side up. Although they are frequently termed “cupstands”’ in Western literature, vessels of this shape are

It is assumed that censers of this type evolved from metal prototypes.* Although censers have a long history beginning at least as early as the Warring States period,° this type made its debut only in the Tang dynasty, the earliest known ceramic example dating to the seventh or eighth century.’ Usually small, early examples typically have straight sides and a sumple conical base; though sometimes gently stepped, the bases of early examples usually lack the well-articulated decorative rings of the present piece.® Excavations

near Tatyuan,

in Shanxi province,

re-

veal that tall, black-glazed censers with elaborate bases—forerunners of this splendid example—had appeared by the early eleventh century;? the recovery of a black-glazed censer with white rim (compare

nos. 31 and 32) from a late-eleventh-century tomb in Nanle county, Henan province, indicates that such

utensils continued to be produced throughout the century.'° Although censers of related shape were made in clear-glazed Cizhou-type ware at the Guantai kilns in Hebei province in the eleventh century,** the censer closest in shape to this one is a celadonglazed example believed to have been made at the Baofeng kilns, in Henan province, in the eleventh or

identified as lamps (deng) or censers (xianglu) in Chi-

nese literature. During the Song dynasty, such vessels were made in a variety of wares, from aristocratic to humble, and in a range of sizes, from large to small.

Presumably filled with fragrant wood or other aromatic materials, such vessels occasionally appear in the hands of people paying homage to the Buddha in Song paintings;’ more frequently, however, paintings

of that period show the vessels on altars before Buddhist deities, smaller ones serving as offering bowls filled with fruit,* larger ones serving either as censers? or as containers for the flaming multicolored jewels that symbolize transcendent wisdom.* Those serving as censers typically sport an openwork domical cover with a jewel-shaped handle at the crest. The discovery of ceramic examples in numerous Song-period tombs indicates that vessels of this type were not made exclusively for Buddhist use; indeed, they likely served as censers and oftering bowls in tombs, just as they doubtless functioned as censers—and perhaps lamps—in secular settings.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

131

early twelfth century.'* Best known for their Cizhou-type wares, the Baofeng kilns also produced celadon- and black-glazed wares, which permits a tentative attribution of this censer to those kilns.

11 See Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush, pp. 72-75, nos. 24-25. 12 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, p. 234, no. 421.

1 See Wai-kam Ho, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman,

and Marc F. Wilson, Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and The Cleveland Museum of Art, exh. cat., The Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, 1980), pp. 60-61,

N

no. 46; Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush, p. 72, fig. 54.

See Editorial Committee of the Joint Board of Directors of the National Palace Museum and National Central Museum, Three Hundred Masterpieces of Chinese Painting, vol. 3, no. 126, upper illustration, left edge.

3 See Marsha Weidner, ed., Later Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850-1850, exh. cat., Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas (Lawrence, 1994), p. 304,

no. 37; National Palace Museum, Masterpieces of Figure Painting in the National Palace Museum (Taipei, 1973), p. 136, no. 10 and pl. ro. Censers of such shape frequently appear on altars in the illustrated frontispieces of Korean Buddhist sutras from the fourteenth century; see Ho’am Kaelléri [Hoam Gallery], Koryé, yongwonhan mi: Koryé Pulhwa t’iikbyoljén [An Exhibition of Koryd Buddhist Painting], exh. cat., Hoam Gallery (Seoul, 1994), pp. Ti4—15, 117, 121, 123, 127, 130-31, 133, 141, nos, 39-40, 43, 44, 46, 49-50 (and details), 51, 56.

4 See note 2 above.

5 Even if metal vessels of this type have not been preserved in China, bronze examples of Kory6-period date have been preserved in Korea, where they clearly functioned as censers. See Kadokawa Shoten, ed., A Pictorial Encyclo-

pedia of the Oriental Arts: Korea (New York and Tokyo, 1969), n.p., pl. 25; Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush, p. Nn

72, fig. $5. For information on censers and their evolution in China,

co

NN]

see Mowry, China’s Renaissance in Bronze, pp. 24-25, iy; 2. See Watson,

Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 171, no. 193.

See Beijing daxue kaoguxi and Hebei sheng wenwu yanjiusuo [Department of Archaeology, Beijing University, and Hebei Provincial Institute of Archaeology], “Hebei sheng Ci xian Guantai Cizhou yao yizhi fajue jianbao” [A Brief Report on the Excavation of the Cizhou Kiln Site at Guantai, Ci County, Hebei Province],

(1990): 6, figs. 8 and 9, and pl. 1, no. 1.

Wenwu 4

g See Jie Xigong, “Taiyuan Xiaojingyu Song, Ming mu di yi ci jue ji” [A Report on the Initial Excavations of the Song and Ming Tombs at Xiaojingyu, Taiyuan], Kaogu 5 (1963): 254 and pl. 6, no. 1.

10 See Shi Guogiang and Wu Junge, “Wenbo jianxun: Henan Nanle xian chutu heiyou ciqi” [Cultural and Museum News: The Recovery of Black-Glazed Stoneware Vessels in Nanle County, Henan],

and pl. 8, no. 8.

132.

Wenwu

12 (1982): 87

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

od. CONICAL AND

BOWL

WHITE

WITH

BLACK

GLAZE

RIM

Northern Song period, probably late r1th-early 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the rim with clear glaze over white slip H. 4.0m

Diam,

15.2 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

[1942.185.436] With a small, well-defined floor at its center, this

conical wan bowl has steeply pitched walls that spring from the small, vertical footring. The bowl’s most striking feature is its white rim, which measures about one-half inch in width; a dark brown glaze covers the remainder of the bowl, excepting only the footring and base, where the exposed body clay fired light gray. The bowl was turned on the wheel, after which it was dipped in the dark glaze; the rim was immediately wiped free of glaze and then dipped in opaque white slip; after drying, the rim was coated with clear glaze, probably by dipping. The bowl was fired right side up. The white rims on vessels of this type were 1nspired by the wide silver bands affixed to Ding and other aristocratic wares during the Song dynasty (compare nos. 14, 77, 78). As noted above (no. 14),

the practice of banding objects with metal to set them apart from the ordinary began at least as early as the Western Han and continued through the Six Dynasties and Tang, garnering renewed popularity in the Northern Song. The practice of simulating gold and silver bands on ceramic vessels also began at least as early as the Western Han, as indicated by the ochre and white bands that appear on the painted funerary earthenwares of the day;' though they attracted little interest after the fall of the Han, ceram-

ics with bands imitating metal found renewed favor in the Northern Song, the revived interest sparked by the popularity of imperial and aristocratic wares with metal bands. In the very best dark-glazed, white-rmmed vessels, the black and clear glazes meet in a crisp line

without mixing; even in the best examples, however,

a slight ridge usually forms at the interface, readily discernible to the touch, if not always to the eye. In more commonplace examples, by contrast, the glazes overlap slightly, the clear glaze accidentally being applied over the edge of the black glaze, or crawling over it during firing. In either case, the somewhat incompatible glazes bubble, and even boil, during firing, causing a narrow band of vertical corrugations to form at the glaze interface. Such bands seldom encircle the entire vessel, but they may extend over several inches. In other instances, the dark and clear

glazes fail to meet at all— either through careless application of the clear glaze or, more likely, through an overcautious attempt to keep the glazes apart—1in which case a narrow band of exposed white slip separates the clear- and dark-glazed areas. Because glaze applied over a thick coating of slip seldom bonds as well as glaze applied directly to a stoneware body, the white rims on vessels of this kind typically show small chips and other minor glaze losses. Usually paired with dark glazes, white rims occasionally appear on celadon-glazed bowls.* Darkglazed vessels with white rims were produced at a number of kilns during the Song dynasty, including ones in Guangdong, Pujian, Jiangxi, Henan, and Shanxi provinces.? Those made at the Cizhou kilns were popular in the late eleventh and the twelfth centuries. The scant archaeological evidence suggests that those pieces with a semilustrous monochrome dark brown glaze are earlier,* while those with a lustrous bluish black glaze splashed with russet are later (no. 41). That evidence points to a late-eleventh- or early-twelfth-century date of manufacture for the present bowl, as does the meticulous application of the glaze. White-rimmed bowls of Cizhou type are

all very similar in appearance, and are represented in numerous collections.° 1 See, for example, Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, n.p., color pl. 1. 2 See Hasebe, Sd, p. 243, no. 244.

3. See Mainichi shimbunsha and Nihon Chigoku bunka koryti kyokai, Chiigoku nisennen no bi, n.p., nos. 468, 472—77.

4 See Shi and Wu, “Wenbo jianxun: Henan Nanle xian chutu heiyou ciqi,” p. 87 and pl. 8, no. 8. 5 See, for example, Howard C. Hollis, “More Sung Dy-

nasty Stoneware,” Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art 36 (January 1949): 13-14, illus. 11; Trubner,

Chinese Ce-

ramics from the Prehistoric Period through Ch’ien Lung, p. 87, nc. 277,

32 LOBED AND

BOWL

WHITE

WITH

BLACK

SCALLOPED

GLAZE

RIM

Northern Song period, late 11th—-early 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the rim and footring with clear glaze over white slip H. 7.7 cm; Diam.

14.0 cm

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Avery Brundage Collection [B60 P1569]

This elegant bowl rests on a wide, lightly splayed footring from which the walls rise vertically, culminating 1n a scalloped rim. Descending from the valleys separating the scallops, ten evenly spaced, vertical indentations 1n the walls gently segment the

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

133

bowl into ten lobes, so that it resembles an open blossom. A dark brown glaze covers the bowl inside and out, except for the lip, base and footring, which have a clear glaze over a thick coat of opaque white slip. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which the scallops were cut into the lip and the indentations impressed into the walls. After drying, the bowl was dipped in the dark glaze; the mm and footring were immediately wiped free of glaze, after which they were dipped in white slip. The clear glaze was probably applied over the slip by dipping, which explains the presence of the white slip and clear glaze on the base and on the interior of the footring. The bowl was fired nght side up. Called bankou wan (petal-mouthed bowls) or lianbankou wan (lotus-petal-mouthed bowls) in Chinese, bowls with scalloped rims derive ultimately from the seventh- and early-eighth-century gold and silver bowls that were embellished around the midsection with a relief lotus-petal band." Descending from

them, silver bowls with notched rims gained favor in

the late eighth and ninth centuries,” inspiring in turn the lobed lacquer and ceramic vessels with segmented flaring rims that became popular in the tenth and eleventh centuries.’ Bowls of the present type, with narrow lobes and scalloped vertical rims,

134

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

appeared in bronze* and lacquer? in the eleventh century, with pieces in ceramic ware quickly following suit. Produced in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, such bowls were popular in white Ding ware,° but the most famous of all were those in imperial Ru ware.’ Framing the bowl, the white lip and footring visually balance each other. Although the footrings of Northern Song ceramic vessels were seldom finished with metal bands, those of late Tang and Five Dynasties porcelain vessels occasionally sport them,” providing a locus classicus for this bowl’s distinctive white footring. Even though white Ding bowls with lightly segmented rims were sometimes banded with metal,” it is unlikely, though not impossible, that bowls with scalloped vertical rims were so finished. In that regard, this bowl is more likely a fanciful imitation, rather than an accurate likeness, of a bowl

with metal mounts. The wide footring and meticulous finish place this bowl firmly in the Northern Song period, as does the semilustrous, monochrome glaze. The attribution to the late eleventh or early twelfth century rests on the popularity of the shape at that time, as documented by archaeological evidence,'° and by the association of Ru ware—in which bowls of this

shape were made—with the late Northern Song imperial court. Black-glazed censers with white rims have been recovered from late-eleventh-century tombs, further indicating that the attribution accords with the scant archaeological evidence available." Although black-glazed bowls with circular white rims (no. 31) are relatively numerous, white-rimmed vessels of other shapes are rare in collections outside China. The Royal Ontario Museum,

Toronto, has a

bowl virtually identical to this one (918.21.467) and also a black-glazed zun- or zhadou-shaped lobed vase with white footring and flaring, bracketed rim (918.19.98), neither of which is published. 1 See Zhenjiang shi bowuguan and Shaanxi sheng bowuguan, Tangdai jinyingi, p. 171, nos. 0-51; Taggart, McKenna, and Wilson, Handbook of the Collections in the

William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, vol. 2, p. 91 (5010); Kelley, Chinese Gold and Silver in American Collections, Pp. 45-49, nos. 12-13. See discussion in Robert D. Mowry, “Kory6 Celadons,” Orientations, vol. 17, no. § (May 1986): 32-37.

ty

2 See Kelley, Chinese Gold and Silver in American Collections, p- 53, no. 19.

See Lovell, “Sung and Yiian Monochrome Lacquers in the Freer Gallery,” n.p., pl. 4, fig. 4a, pl. 6, fig. 6.

LA

4 See Yang, Gongyi meishu bian: Jin yin boli falang qi, pp. 30, 50, no. 104. See Lovell, “Sung and Ytian Monochrome

Nn

the Freer Gallery,” n.p., pl. 8, figs. 8-11.

Lacquers in

See Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, pp. 72-73, no. 18.

7 See Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 129, pl. 153. Such Ru-ware bowls were copied in twelfth-century Korea with excellent results; see Mowry,

cover and p. 25, fig. 1.

“Kory6é Celadons,”

\O

8 See Xie Minghang, “Jinyinkou ciqiji qi youguan wenti” [Metal-Rimmed Ceramics and Other Related Issues], Gugong wenwu yuekan vol. 4, no. 2 (May 1986): 82, figs. oe See Zhongguo taoci bianji we1ryuanhui, Dingyao, n.p.,

pl. 30.

10 For a white bowl or basin with scalloped rim recovered from a tomb dated to 1099, see Zheng Long, “Zhaowuda meng Liao Shang Weifu mu qingli jianbao” [A Brief Report on the Investigation of the Liao Tomb of Shang Weifu at Zhaowuda meng, Inner Mongolia], Wenwu 9 (1961): 3, fig. 5 and so, fig. 2, no. 1. For a tenth- or

early-eleventh-century lobed bowl found at Julu xian,

Hebei province, see Hasebe, So, p. 234, fig. 97.

11 See Shi and Wu, “Wenbo jianxun: Henan Nanle xian chutu heiyou ciqi,” p. 87 and pl. 8, no. 8.

S36 BOTTLE AND

WITH

Russet

Northern Northern stoneware overglaze

FLARING

LIP

FIECKS

Song period, 11th—early 12th century black ware of Cizhou type: light gray with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide

H. 28.7 cm; Diam.

20.5 cm

Anonymous loan Of almost elliptical form, this bottle rests on a low but subtly flaring foot. The walls bulge outward, their profile resembling a set of parentheses as they rise from the base, then curve inward to culminate in

the cylindrical neck with its flaring lip. Appearing

black, a thick, lustrous dark brown glaze with small

russet flecks coats the exterior of the bottle, stopping just short of the foot; the exposed body clay on the base, footring, and lower portion of the bottle formed a grayish buff skin in firing. The bottle was turned on the wheel in sections that were luted together after drying; the glaze was applied by dipping, after which the dots of iron oxide that formed the russet flecks were splashed on. The bottle was fired right side up. Bottles of this type, with rounded sides, cylindrical necks, and everted lips, first appeared in the eleventh century, perhaps evolving alongside the ovoid bottles (compare nos. 24 and 35) that also flourished in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Though rare, such round-sided bottles usually feature a lustrous black glaze with tiny russet flecks or mottles; in addition, they typically stand on a short, well-cut footring that circumscribes a broad, flat base. Such bottles are believed to have been used for storing and serving wine.” A closely related bottle in the Idemitsu Museum, Tokyo, boasts a brush-written inscription on its flat, unglazed base; reading Xuanhe yuannian wuyue ershiri suo Zao and translating “Made on the twentieth day of the fifth month of the first year of the Xuanhe [reign],” the inscription indicates that the Idemitsu bottle was made in 1119. The kinship between the two bottles, which differ only slightly in shape, indicates that the present bottle must date to the late eleventh or early twelfth century.* A white-glazed bottle, similar in shape to the Idemitsu example, was

excavated from the second stratum of the Cizhoutype kiln site at Guantai, in Hebei province; with second-stratum materials dated to the period

from 1050 to 1150, the excavated bottle not only

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

135

corroborates the dating proposed here, but

oF

type kilns.° An almost identical bottle appears in the collec-

CONICAL

confirms that such pieces were produced at Cizhou-

tion of Simon

Kwan,

1 Hong Kong Museum Collection, p. 344.

Hong

I)

RUSSET

FLECKS

Northern black ware of Cizhou type: off-white stoneware with dark brown

of Art, Song Ceramics from the Kwan

glaze iron oxide E

$.7 cov, Diam.

glaze, the markings in over-

1¢.2..cni

See Idemitsu byutsukan [Idemitsu Museum], Sodai no tojt [Ceramics of the Song Dynasty] (Tokyo, 1979), n.p., no. 74; Idemitsu bijutsukan [Idemitsu Museum], Chigoku toji: Idemitsu bijutsukan zohin zuroku [Chinese Ceramics: A

seums, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

Catalogue of the Idemitsu Museum Collection] (Tokyo, 1987), n.p., no. §30; Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush, p.

V-shaped

244;

Sheila Riddell,

(London and Boston, lv

WITH

Northern Song period, 11th—early 12th century

Kong.*

we

Dated

Chinese Antiquities,

600-1650

1979), p. $7, fig. 28.

See Beijing daxue kaoguxi and Hebei sheng wenwu yanjiusuo,

“Hebei

shengoD Ci xian

Guantai

fajue jianbao,” p. 9, fig. 18, no. 12.

Cizhou

yao /

yizhi /

4 See Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the Kwan

136

BOWL

Collection, pp. 344-45, no. 154.

Hare’s Fur,

Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Mu[1942.185.406]

in section, this conical wan bowl

has thin,

straight walls that expand rapidly from the small circular footring. A tiny, well-defined floor on the interior corresponds to the base on the underside. Appearing caramel where thin and black where

thick, a lustrous dark brown glaze with russet speck-

les covers the bow]

inside and

out, including the flat

base, but excluding the footring. The bowl was

turned on the potter’s wheel, and the metic-

ulously pared footring cut by hand; the glaze was applied by dipping, after which the iron-oxide speckles were splashed on the surface. The bowl was fired right side up, standing on its Detail, no. 34 footring. Although the conical shape, fully glazed base, triangular cut of the foot, and very light body clay might otherwise tempt an attribution to the Ding kilns, Eva Sander’s 1987 study revealed that this bowl differs from Ding ware in both its chemical composition and its lower firing temperature, the latter causing it to resonate less, when tapped, than the highly sonorous Ding ware.’ The resemblance to Ding ware suggests that this bowl may well have been made in imitation of a Ding bowl with brown-flecked black glaze, such as the rare example in the Manné

Museum,

Osaka.”

The painstaking application of glaze to the full exterior, excepting only the footring, places this bowl firmly in the Northern Song period, as does its quiet design of russet flecks (compare no. 16). Although the differing colors of their body clays suggest that they were not made at the same kiln, this bowl and the previous bottle (no. 33) share a similar glaze, indicating that they were probably both made in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. The very light body clay suggests that this bowl might have been made at the Guantai kilns, in Hebei province,

where sherds of light-bodied stoneware vessels with partridge-feather glazes have been recovered.? 1 Eva Sander, “A Comparative Study of Northern DarkGlazed Stoneware Bowls from the Song Dynasty,” unpublished research paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an internship in the Harvard University Art Museums’ Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 1987.

2 See Toky6é kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 110, no. ISS.

3 See Beijing daxue kaoguxi and Hebei sheng wenwu yanjiusuo, “Hebei sheng Ci xian Guantai Cizhou yao yizhi fajue jianbao,” p. 7, fig. 14.

25 ELONGATED LIP

AND

OVOID

BOTTLE

PARTRIDCE=-FEREATHER

WITH

EVERTED

MOTTLES

Northern Song period, 11th—-early 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: off-white stoneware with dark brown glaze, the russet markings in overglaze iron oxide H. 29.2 cm; Diam.

18.2 cm

The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Russell Tyson

[1950.1635]

This magnificent bottle of elongated ovoid form stands on a circular foot, its walls rising almost vertically, then turning inward to form the flat shoulder. The lightly waisted neck culminates in the everted horizontal lip. Appearing bluish black where thick, a lustrous dark brown glaze covers the exterior of the

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

137

138

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Ph

O

togr

Oo LA

aph

C

)

199

5;

The Art Institute

O

£

G hicago. All I Xt ight sR c

served.

bottle, stopping short of the foot; a balanced but irregular pattern of russet markings of varied size embellishes the upper half of the bottle. The same dark

glazes produced at the Jizhou kilns as “tortoiseshell glazes.” Evolving from the small russet flecks that embellish the dark glazes of Ding and Cizhou-type wares

leaving only the lowest portion of the foot unglazed; the exposed body clay appears light gray. The bottle was wheel-turned in sections that were luted together after drying; the assembled piece was dipped in glaze, after which the iron-oxide markings were applied, perhaps by dripping. The bottle was fired right side up, standing on its footring. Despite its flat shoulder and elongated form, this ovoid bottle shares the same lineage as the russetglazed Cizhou-type bottle from the Harvard University Art Museums (no. 24) and the two russet Ding bottles excavated from the late eleventh-century tomb of Zhang Min in Jiangsu province.’ Its horizontal lip even shows the same concave ring about its midsection as the lips on those bottles. An ancient term, zhegu ban (partridge-feather mottles) appears in texts of the mid-tenth century to describe ceramics with mottled decoration. In his

tles of the type seen on this bottle began to appear in dark-glazed Cizhou-type wares in the eleventh century. Created with iron oxide, the markings are identical in chemistry and general appearance both to the markings on dark-glazed Yaozhou wares (nos. 21-22) and to the rust-brown skin on russet-glazed

glaze, that is now in the British Museum,

London,

was reportedly recovered at Julu xian, Hebei province, a residential site destroyed by floods about 1108; the Julu xian provenance provides a terminus ante quem for the British Museum bottle, and confirms this bottle’s late-eleventh- to early-twelfthcentury date.” There are related bottles in the Cleveland Museum,'° the ItsuG Museum,

Osaka,!! and the

Tianjin Municipal Art Museum in Hebei province, China.** |

Tingjian* (1045-1105) mentioned tea bowls with

partridge-feather markings in a poem, as did the Song poets Chen Jianshu and Monk Huihong.? In virtually all cases, Song mentions of partridge-feather markings refer to Jian or Jian-type tea bowls, that is, to dark-glazed wares made at the Jian kilns in Fujian province (see nos. 76-86). Since Song authors did not further describe the appearance of so-called partridge-feather markings, and since the number of Jian tea bowls with such glazes now extant 1s exceptionally small,° the exact meaning of the term as it was used in Song times remains unclear. Today, the term “partridge-feather glaze” denotes a dark glaze with decorative dots or splashes in a contrasting color. While some modern authors use “partridge-feather mottles” to refer to amber markings on the dark brown wares made at the Jizhou kilns in Jiangxi province, others use it exclusively for the russet markings on the black wares made at kilns in the north—from the Ding kilns in Hebei to the Cizhou-type kilns in Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, and Shaanxi provinces. This catalogue uses “partridge-feather mottles” to refer to the russet markings in the dark-glazed wares produced in the north; it refers to the amber- or buff-splashed brown

its glaze to partridge-feather-glazed Ding ware hints that this bottle might derive from a now-lost Ding prototype.’ Although the kiln of manufacture cannot yet be ascertained, their distinctive partridge-feather glazes suggest that this bottle and the following bow] (no. 36) might have been made at the Qinglongsi kilns at Baofeng, in Henan province, where sherds from black-glazed vessels with balanced but irregular patterns of russet mottles have been excavated.* The shape anchors the bottle in the Northern Song period, as does its fully glazed exterior and base. A closely related bottle, also with partridge-feather

tv

partridge-feather markings, stating “[Among] the tea bowls made in Min [Fujian] are ones decorated with partridge-feather mottles; connoisseurs of tea prize them.’? In addition, the calligrapher Huang

wares (12-16, 20, 24-27). The visual similarity of

See Zhongguo taoci bianji weiyuanhui, Dingyao, n.p., pl. 58; Zhenjiang shi bowuguan, “Zhenjiang shi Nanjiao Bei Song Zhang Min mu,” pl. 4, no. 3. For information on Tao Gu, see T. Terada, “T’ao Ku,”

in Sung Biographies, ed. Herbert Franke, vol. 3 (Wiesbaden, 1976), pp. 1004-6. ww

Qingyilu, a collection of anecdotes, Tao Gu? (903-970) remarks upon Jian ware vessels with

(nos. 16 and 33-34), the larger partridge-feather mot-

Quoted in Feng Xianming, “Cong wenxian kan Tang Song yilai yincha fengshang ji taoci chaju de yanbian” [A Look at Tea-Drinking Customs and the Development of

Ceramic Tea Utensils Since Tang and Song Times on the Basis of Literary References], Wenwu 1 (1963): Io. 4 For information on Huang Tingjian, see Lutz Bieg, “Huang T’ing-chien,” in Sung Biographies, ed. Herbert Franke, vol. I, pp. 454-61.

5 Quoted in Feng, “Cong wenxian kan Tang Song yilai yincha fengshang ji taoci chaju de yanbian,” pp. 10-11. Nn

glaze, but without russet splashes, coats the flat, countersunk base and the inside wall of the foot,

For examples, see Chad6 shiryokan [Tea Ceremony Institute] and Fukken sho hakubutsukan [Fujian

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

139

glaze as the rest of

Provincial Museum], Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Toku-

the bowl, but with-

out the russet markings; the exterior and bottom of the foot are unglazed, revealing the off-

betsuten [Chinese Temmoku— Temmoku Wares Recovered from the Jian Kilns in Fujian Province and

Temmoku Wares Preserved as Heirloom Pieces in Japan: A Special Exhibition], exh. cat., Tea Ceremony Institute

~—

(Kyoto, 1994), p. 61, no. 41.

Compare the rare partridge-feather-glazed Ding bowl

\O

oo

in the Manno Museum, Osaka; see Tokyd kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 110, no. 15S.

See Mainichi shimbunsha and Nihon Chigoku bunka koryti kydkai, Chiigoku nisennen no bi, n.p., no. 492. See R. L. Hobson, Handbook of Pottery and Porcelain of the Far East in the Department of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum (London, 1924, 1937, and 1948), p. 31, fig. 46.

10 See Howard C. Hollis, “Pottery of the Sung Dynasty,” Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art 28 (October LOAi)= 125-26, illus, p. 133. tr

See Osaka shiritsu byutsukan [Osaka Municipal Museum], SO Gen no bijutsu [The Arts of Song and Yuan], Chigoku bijutsuten shirtzu 4 [Chinese Art Exhibition series no. 4], exh.

cat., Osaka

Municipal

Museum

(Osaka,

1978), pp. 42, 137, no. I-202.

12 See Tianjin shi yishu bowuguan [Tianjin Municipal Art Museum],

Tianjin shi yishu bowuguan cangci [Ceramics

from the Tianjin Municipal Art Museum] (Bejing, 1993), p. 185, no. 43, and pl. 43.

36 CONICAL

BOWL

WITH

PARTRIDGE-FEATHER

white body clay. The bowl was

turned on the

Detail, no. 36

potter’s wheel, its

footring cut by hand. The piece was dipped in glaze, and the iron-oxide markings perhaps applied by dripping. The bow] was fired right side up, standing on its footring.

Although related in shape to the conical bow]

with russet-flecked glaze (no. 34), this bowl has a

U-shaped footring with vertical walls and rounded bottom, whereas the russet-flecked bowl has a trian-

gular footring with vertical exterior wall, angled interior wall, and V-pointed bottom. The present bowl’s nearest relative is the elongated ovoid bottle from The Art Institute of Chicago (no. 35), which shows a similar off-white body and a related pattern of russet markings; 1n fact, this bowl’s attribution to the late

eleventh or early twelfth century rests on its similarity in style to that bottle. The recovery at the Qinglongsi kilns at Baofeng, in Henan province, of a sherd from a black-glazed bow] with a balanced but irregular pattern of russet markings of varying size suggests that both this bowl and the previous bottle might have been made there.’

WLOTTLES

Northern Song period, 11th—early 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: off-white stoneware with dark brown glaze, the russet markings in overglaze iron oxide H. 5.4 cm; Diam.

19.5 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

[1942.185.434| Resembling a flattened V in section, this conical wan bowl has straight sides that expand rapidly from the small circular footring. A tiny, well-defined floor marks the center of the interior. The dark brown glaze that coats the bowl inside and out appears black where thick; a balanced but irregular pattern of russet markings of varied size enlivens the glaze, the markings numerous on the exterior but limited and asymmetrically disposed on the interior. The flat base and the interior of the foot boast the same dark brown

140

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

1 See Mainichi shimbunsha and Nihon Chigoku bunka

koryti kyOkai, Chigoku nisennen no bi, n.p., no. 492.

37a &b Two

CONICAL

FEATHER

Northern Song century Northern black stoneware with russet skin, the iron oxide LEFT:

BOWLS

WITH

PARTRIDGE-

MOTTLES

to Jin period, late 11th—first half 12th ware of Cizhou type: off-white dark brown glaze, the exteriors with interiors with russet markings in overglaze

(.427) H. 4.5 cm; Diam.

16.5 cm

RIGHT: (.428) H. 4.9 cm; Diam. 16.3 cm Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane [1942.185.427—-428]

oeBus ee

oe

a a

= ov aneua teases

Revaciias

a

ne cee

* hi nese Brown- and Bla C k-Glaze od C

€ -VAMICS

141

Representing two

bowls from a large set, each of these conical wan bowls rests on a small, circular

footring, its straight walls flaring dramatically outward. A small, well-defined

Detail, no. 376

floor on the interior corresponds to the flat base on the underside. A dark brown glaze covers each bowl inside and out, stopping just short of the foot, the glaze appearing bluish black where thick but caramel where thin (around

the lip, for example). A slightly variegated russet skin covers the glaze on the exterior of each bowl, while a pattern of evenly spaced russet markings of various size enlivens the interior of each. The exposed body clay on the low footring and shallow base fired an

off-white color. The bowls were wheel-turned, after

which they were dipped in the glaze, the russet markings perhaps applied by dripping. The bowls were fired right side up. The shape and decorative mottling stamp these bowls as products of the late Northern Song or early Jin period, as does the extension of the glaze to the very top of the footring. Sherds of related, lightbodied bowls with partridge-feather glazes excavated from the second stratum of the Cizhou-type Guantai kilns, in Hebei province, often have unglazed but

well-cut footrings and shallow bases akin to those seen here, suggesting a possible kiln of manufacture.’ Archaeologists have dated materials from the second stratum at the Guantai kilns to the period from 1050 to 1150, confirming the attribution offered here.

The Dane Collection at the Harvard University Art Museums includes two additional bowls of identical shape and decoration, bolstering the argument that such bowls were not made in pairs, but in sets. One of the additional bowls has a russet-skinned exterior (1942.185.426); the other has a dark brown exterior that appears black (1942.185.429); neither

is published.

1942.185.428 (only)

PUBLISHED:

Trubner,

Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric

Period through Ch’ien Lung, p. 85, no. 201.

1 See Being daxue kaoguxi and Hebei sheng wenwu yanjiusuo, “Hebei sheng Ci xian Guantai Cizhou yao yizhi fajue jianbao,” p. 7, fig. 14.

142

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

38a Kb Two AND

WITH

FLARING

PARTRIDGE-FEATHER

SMALL

BOWLS

MOTTLES

LIP

Northern Song to Jin period, late 11th—first half 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: off-white stoneware with dark brown glaze, the interiors with russet markings in iron oxide, the exteriors with russet skin,

the Sackler Museum example also with purplish brown slip on the lowest portion of the exterior

LEFT: H. 5.0 cm; Diam.

12.2 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

[1942.185.437] RIGHT:

H. 4.6 cm; Diam.

The Scheinman Collection

12.6 cm

[96]

These small wan bowls have steeply pitched sides and gently flaring rims, and they stand on small circular footrings. Stopping short of the foot, a dark brown glaze covers each bowl inside and out, appearing bluish black where thick, and aubergine or caramel where thin. A russet skin coats the glaze on the exterior of each bowl, while a regular pattern of evenly spaced russet markings of various size adorns the interior of each. The glaze extends to the top of the footring on the Scheinman bowl, revealing the offwhite body clay of the well-pared footring and the shallow, flat base; on the Harvard bowl, the glaze

ends approximately one inch above the footring, the exposed off-white body clay concealed by a thin coat of purplish brown slip that was applied before firing, and that also extends over the foot and shallow base. The bowls were wheel-turned, after which they were dipped in the glaze, the russet markings perhaps applied by dripping. The bowls were fired right side up. As previous examples (nos. 28-37) demonstrate, potters working at Cizhou-type kilns in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries usually covered the full exteriors of their pots with glaze, excepting only the footring and base, if they left any areas unglazed at all. Beginning in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, Cizhou potters revived the Tang practice of leaving the lower portions of their vessels unglazed (compare no. 27). In some cases, the unglazed lower portion remains unembellished, exposing the body clay (compare no. 27); in other cases, such as the present Harvard bowl, the unglazed portion 1s dressed with a dark slip that mimics the russet glaze and that eliminates what would otherwise be a strong visual contrast between the light body clay and the

dark glaze. The use of dark slip to coat the lower, unglazed portion of a vessel varied, some kilns employing it, others not; the practice enjoyed its greatest popularity in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, during the Jin dynasty, after which it fell into disuse. With one boasting a fully glazed exterior and the other a partially slip-dressed exterior, these two bowls iulustrate the transition from one practice to the other. Although some have maintained that vessels with a slip-darkened lower portion have a coating of slip over the entire piece—1including those areas under the glaze—the narrow gap that appears between the glazed and slipped areas on the Harvard bowl reveals that such 1s not the case. In fact, many bowls of this type show a gap between the glazed and slipped areas. After shaping and drying, such bowls were partially immersed, base first, in a container of slip,

which accounts both for the slip’s even upper edge and for its presence on the base and the bottom of the footring. After the slip had dried, the piece was dipped lip-first into the glaze slurry; following another period of drying, iron oxide was applied to create the russet skin on the exterior and the mottles on the interior. A drop of purplish brown slip that accidentally splashed on the underside of the Harvard bowl’s lip produced a rust-brown mark that is much darker and more metallic in appearance than the intentionally applied russet mottles. Identically shaped bowls with related partridgefeather glazes have been excavated from the Guantai kilns in Hebei province." The footrings and bases of

these two bowls are almost identical to those of the previous conical bowls (no. 37); the similarity in shape and cut of all four footrings to those of partridge-feather-glazed sherds recovered from the second stratum of the Cizhou-type Guantai kilns suggests that all of these related bowls may have been made there. As noted before, archaeologists have assigned materials from the second stratum at the Guantai kilns to the period from 1050 to I150,

which accords with the attribution advanced here. Bowls of this shape with celadon glaze over molded decoration were produced at the Yaozhou kilns in the twelfth century, further corroborating the date advanced here. The unpublished but virtually identical bowls in 9

the collections of Dr. Robert Barron, Dr. and Mrs.

Marvin L. Gordon,’ and the Royal Ontario Museum + resemble the Harvard bowl in having a coating of purplish brown slip over the lower portion. The lower portion of a related bowl in the Metyintang Collection is both unglazed and unslipped, revealing its coarse yellowish buff stoneware body and suggesting that it may represent a continuation of the type into the late twelfth or thirteenth century.° Its lower portion dressed with dark brown slip, a second visually related bowl in the Meiyintang Collection bears an attribution to the Jizhou kilns, in

Jiangxi province.° A related series of identically shaped bowls has the same russet-skinned dark brown glaze on the exterior, but substitutes a pattern of tiny russet markings,

or dapples, on the interior; virtually identical to

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

143

bowls recovered from the Guantai kiln site,” such

bowls also appear in many collections, including those of Dr. Robert Barron and the Harvard University Art Museums.” Both of those pieces remain unpublished.

t See Mainichi shimbunsha and Nihon Chigoku bunka koryi kydkai, Chiigoku nisennen no bi, n.p., no. 470; Bei-

i)

jing daxue kaoguxi and Hebei sheng wenwu yanjiusuo, ‘Hebei sheng Ci xian Guantai Cizhou yao yizhi fajue jianbao,” p. 7, fig. 14. See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan

tw

Yaozhouyao, p. 31, fig. 20, no. 1, and pl. 16, nos. 2, 4.

Unpublished; the bowl in the Gordon Collection was formerly in the collection of Lord Cunliffe.

LA

Unpublished; Royal Ontario Museum, sion number 921.21.78.

Toronto, acces-

See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection,

Nn

vol. I, p. 258, no. 470. See ibid., p. 282, no. 524. I have not handled the bowl,

so I cannot comment on the attribution. If the bowl was in fact made at the Jizhou kilns, it would seem to be modeled on wares of the type featured in this entry rather than on Jian ware, as Regina Krahl suggests in her discussion of the piece. Since dark slip may have been applied to the light bodies of pieces made at northern kilns to make their unglazed areas resemble the dark purplish brown bodies of Jian ware, the use of a dark brown slip on the Meiyintang piece might, however, reflect indirect ~

influence from Jian ware. See Mainichi shimbunsha and Nihon Chigoku bunka

CO

korya kydkai, Chiigoku nisennen no bi, n.p., no. 470. Harvard University Art Museums,

accession number

1942.18S.

COVERED WITH

WIDE-MOUTHED

PARTRIDGE-FEATHER

Northern Northern stoneware overglaze

MOTTLES

Song to Jin period, 12th century black ware of Cizhou type: light gray with dark brown glaze, the russet markings in iron oxide

Cup: H. 9.0 cm; Diam. Cover:

BOWL

Diam.

15.1 cm

15.6 cm

Cup and cover: H. 12.5 cm Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr. [112]

This set comprises a wide-mouthed bowl and a domed cover with an everted horizontal lip and twig

144

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

handle. The bowl is U-shaped in section, its almost vertical walls inclining inward very slightly at the top. Surrounding the broad, flat base, the wide circular footring has low vertical walls and a lightly angled bottom. A narrow horizontal lip encircles the base of the domed cover, a short flange projecting downward from the lip’s inner edge on the underside. Appearing black where thick, a dark brown glaze with small- and medium-sized partridge-feather mottles covers the exteriors of both bowl

and cover, the

glaze stopping about one inch short of the bowl’s foot. Except for those areas with “tears” of dark glaze that ran in the kiln, the lower portion of the bowl is unglazed, as are the foot and base; the exposed body clay fired a light grayish buff. A thin wash of brown glaze coats the bowl’s interior, except for the inside of the lip, which was wiped free of glaze so that the cover could be fired in place. A band of dark brown glaze, identical to that on the exterior, rings the bowl’s interior, just below the unglazed lip. The un-

derside of the cover is entirely unglazed. The bowl and cover were turned on the potter’s wheel; after their drying, the glaze was applied and the ironoxide markings were touched on, perhaps with a fingertip. The bowl was fired nght side up, the cover in place atop the bowl. Covered bowls of this type were popular in Ding, Yaozhou, and Cizhou-type wares during the Northern Song and Jin periods, the Cizhou-type pieces often imitating examples in black- and russetglazed Ding ware. Although the interiors of darkglazed Ding covered bowls were typically coated with clear glaze (see discussion no. 17), the interiors

of Cizhou-type pieces vary considerably from one example to the next. The bowl of a related set in a

+)

finished to resemble Ding ware, with clear glaze over a coating of white slip; despite the bowl’s meticulous

LATING

private collection in Saint Louis has its interior

finish, the underside of the cover, like that of the

Falk set, is entirely unglazed.' (Splashed on accidentally before firing, several small spots of dark slip overlap the edges of the Saint Louis bowl and its cover, proving that the pieces have been paired as a set from the beginning.) Like the Falk piece, the bowl of an unpublished set in The Art Institute of Chicago (64.760 a, b) has a coat of medium brown glaze on its interior, with a band of dark brown glaze, identical to that on the exterior, around the upper portion, just below the unglazed lip; unlike the Falk piece, however, the cover’s dome boasts a coat of dark brown glaze on its underside. The Falk Collection bowl has spur marks on its floor, as do the Chicago and Saint Louis bowls, indicating that a smaller piece was fired inside. Their identical footrings suggest that the Falk Collection and Art Institute of Chicago bowls were produced at the same kiln, at about the same time. Unfortunately, that kiln cannot yet be identified, as

archaeologists have not yet retrieved similar pieces in controlled kiln-site excavations. Partridge-feather glazes were produced at a number of Cizhou-type

kilns in Henan, Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong

provinces in the late Northern Song and Jin periods. The low, well-cut foot and the wide unglazed band surrounding it indicate that the Falk and Chicago bowls were probably made in the twelfth century, in the late Northern Song or early Jin period. Its clearglazed interior and its more fully glazed exterior make the Saint Louis bowl a close approximation of partridge-feather-glazed Ding ware, suggesting that it might date to the late eleventh or early twelfth century, that is, to the late Northern Song period. In addition to those in Chicago and Saint Louis, there are two related covered bowls in the Meiyintang Collection.* PUBLISHED: James Cahill, The Art of Southern Sung China, exh. cat., The Asia Society (New York, 1962), p. 103, no. C28.

1 Formerly in the Alfred I. Clark Collection, the set in Saint Louis is published (but not illustrated) in Oriental

Ceramic Society, Sung Dynasty Wares: Chiin and Brown Glazes, exh. cat., Oriental Ceramic Society (London, 1952), p. 12, no. 118.

2 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, pp. 254-55, no. 462.

GLOBULAR

JAR

LEAVES

WITH AND

Two WITH

HANDLES RUSSET

SIMUSPLASHES

Northern Song to Jin period, 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with appliqué handles and with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide, the lower portion dressed with medium brown glaze H,

19.3 em: Diam,

21.2 cm

The Scheinman Collection

[118]

This globular guan jar stands on a short, circular foot that is just slightly smaller in diameter than the vertical lip that encircles the mouth, thus completing the jar's stable, symmetrical form. Diametrically opposed, two tapered strap handles appear at the shoulder, each vertically striated to resemble a pointed, veined leaf. Appearing black where thick, a lustrous dark brown glaze covers the vessel’s exterior, stopping about two inches short of the foot; sixteen large russet splashes—some overlapping, some with a metallic sheen—embellish the jar’s shoulder, arranged eight to a side. A thin, caramel-colored glaze covers the Jar’s interior as well as the lower portion of its exterior, foot and base, leaving only the bottom of the footring unglazed. The top and inside of the lip were wiped free of glaze so that a cover, now lost, could

be fired in place. As indicated by circular potting marks on its exterior and spiraling finger troughs on its interior, this jar was wheel-turned in sections that were luted together after drying. Following the pot’s assembly, the strap handles were set in place and the glaze was applied, probably by dipping. The caramelcolored glaze is likely no more than a thin coating of the dark brown glaze, suggesting that the jar was dipped twice: first into a diluted slurry that resulted in the caramel glaze, and then into the principal slurry that resulted in the lustrous dark brown glaze. The russet markings were touched on the surface of the glaze in iron oxide, perhaps with a brush. The jar was fired right side up; three small spur marks in the caramel glaze on the floor indicate that a smaller vessel was fired inside. An unpublished but closely related black-glazed guan jar in the collection of Dr. Robert Barron substitutes handles simulating twisted rope for this jar’s leaf handles, and it replaces this jar’s russet splashes with twelve russet rosettes, or abstract blossoms.

Despite their differing decorative schemes, the two Jars are similarly shaped, and they have identical footrings and bases. The same dark glaze covers the

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

145

AO

upper portions of their exteriors, and the same caramel glaze coats their interiors and the lower portions of their exteriors; the dark glaze even has the same slightly undulating lower edge on both jars. In addition, the two jars show virtually identical potting marks. The caramel glaze, the potting marks, and the cut of the footring and base link the Scheinman and Barron Collection jars to a series of black-glazed, wide-mouthed jars with appliqué white ribs (see no. 61). Many of the ribbed jars also feature the same longitudinally striated, leaf-shaped handles as the Scheinman jar. Jars with russet-splashed black glaze were produced at a number of kilns in Hebei, Henan, and

Shandong provinces in the late Northern Song and Jin periods, as were jars with white nbs. The caramel glaze, fine-grained gray body clay, and pointed, striated handles suggest Hebei or Henan province as the location of manufacture. By contrast, the lower portions of black-glazed vessels from the Cicun kilns, near Zibo in Shandong province, are usually

146

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

unglazed; their interiors often remain unglazed as well, though some have glaze on the upper portion of the interior, leaving the lower portion unglazed so that a smaller vessel could be nested inside during firing. The loop handles of jars made at the Cicun kilns are typically of even width, and at their lower end they have an oval nub that was flattened with a thumb when the moist clay was pressed into place on the jar’s shoulder; scored longitudinally with two parallel lines, the handles resemble three joined ribs, or filaments.’ Archaeological excavations have recovered related black-glazed jars with white ribs (see no. 61) from twelfth-century contexts, suggesting that both the present jar and the one in the Barron Collection date

to the twelfth century. The dressing of the base, foot, and lower portion of the jars with a thin coat of caramel glaze accords with the practice employed at many Cizhou-type kilns in the twelfth century of coating those areas ofa dark-glazed vessel not covered by the principal glaze with slip, or with a thin

wash of glaze. Thus the strong visual contrast that would otherwise occur between the light body and the dark glaze is eliminated (compare no. 38). PUBLISHED:

Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire, p. 88, no. 69.

1 See Penelope Hughes-Stanton and Rose Kerr, Kiln Sites

of Ancient China: An Exhibition Lent by the People’s Repub-

lic of China, ed. Mary Tregear, exh. cat., Oriental Ceramic Society (London, 1980), pp. 86, 93, 158, no. 433.

Tl BOWL AND

WITH FIVE

WHITE

RUSSET

RIM SPLASHES

Jin dynasty, 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide, the nm with clear glaze over white slip FL, 7.9 comm Diam.

17.7 em

Dr. Robert Barron

The rounded walls of this circular wan bowl arc up-

wards from the short, vertical foot, terminating in a

white rim that simulates dark brown glaze covers excepting only the foot which are unglazed. Of

a silver band. A variegated the remainder of the bowl, and slightly pointed base, generally elliptical shape, five

large, evenly spaced, russet splashes embellish the interior. The exposed body clay at the foot fired a very light gray. The bowl was turned on the wheel, after which it was dipped in the dark glaze; the rim was immediately wiped free of glaze and then dipped in opaque white slip; after drying, the rim was coated with clear glaze, probably by dipping. The russet splashes were touched on with iron oxide, probably using a brush. The bowl was fired right side up. Dark-glazed bowls with large, evenly spaced splashes became popular in wares produced at a number of Cizhou-type kilns in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, demonstrating the Jin taste for abstract, structured designs. Occasionally numbering just three (see no. 42), the splashes more typically number five (compare nos. 46-48). The extension of

the dark brown glaze to the very edge of the footring points to a date of manufacture in the twelfth century for this bowl, as does the very well executed white rim, which shows neither a gap between clear and dark glazes nor the rough surface at the glaze interface that can result in firing if the clear glaze is applied atop the dark glaze (see discussion no. 31). Although the kiln that produced this bowl cannot yet be identified, the fine-grained, light gray—almost oft-white—body clay makes a Cizhou-type kiln in Hebei or Henan province a more likely prospect than the Cicun kilns at Zibo in Shandong province. Though not necessarily from the same kiln, bowls with white rims and large russet splashes appear in

AI

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

147

the Scheinman

Collection’

the Asian Art Museum

and in the collections of

of San Francisco”

Harvard University Art Museums.?

and the

bo

NN

1 See Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire, p. 82, no. 62. Unpublished; Asian Art Museum sion number B62 P1S9.

of San Francisco acces-

Two unpublished but virtually identical bowls; Harvard University Art Museums accession numbers 1992.338.

1992.337 and

es WITH

AGAINST

A

THREE SUBTLE

RUSSET

MARKINGS

HARE’S-FUR

GLAZE

Jin dynasty, 12th—early 13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide H. 8.6 cm; Diam. The Scheinman

14.9 cm Collection

[97]

Resting on a short, circular footring, this deep bo bowl has rounded sides that culminate in a vertical rim. Stopping well short of the foot, a lustrous dark brown glaze coats the bowl inside and out, appearing caramel where thin and bluish black where thick. Set against a subdued, russet, hare’s-fur pattern, three

evenly spaced russet markings of elongated triangular

form emblazon the interior, their flat bases anchored

at the rim, their pointed apexes extending into the bowl’s center. Perhaps by accident, a single russet splash appears in the hare’s-fur-marked glaze on the exterior. Slightly flared, the well-cut footring has an angled interior wall, a subtly angled exterior wall, and a flat bottom; the base has a small, convex point at its center. Of medium-coarse texture, the exposed body clay on the bowl’s lower portion assumed a caramel-flecked, yellowish buff skin during firing. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which it was dipped in the glaze slurry; once the glaze had dried, the triangular markings were touched on the surface in iron oxide, perhaps with a brush. The bowl was fired right side up. Now too abraded to be read, a brush-written ink inscription

occupies a long stretch of the unglazed portion of the bowl’s exterior wall. Although the relatively coarse body clay with its yellowish buff skin suggests that it could have been made at a kiln in Shandong province, this bowl was probably made in Hebei or Henan province. The splashed design and the neatly cut footring place this

148

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

bow] firmly in the Jin dynasty, the wide unglazed band above its foot perhaps arguing for a date in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. A related bowl in the Metyintang Collection shares the same design and the same medium-coarse body clay with its caramel-flecked, yellowish buft skin, indicating that the two bowls were made at the same kiln, at about the same time.’ A similarly shaped bow] in a Japanese private collection has five triangular markings in its interior.” PUBLISHED: 4

BOWL

Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire, p. 82, no. 61.

See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, pp. 256-57, no. 466.

2 See Osaka shiritsu bijutsukan, Sd Gen no bijutsu, pp. 43, 137, no. I=206.

43a &b Two

Lip

SMALL

AND

BOWLS,

SILVER

EACH

OIL-SPOT

WITH

INDENTED

DECORATION

Jin dynasty, probably 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide, the lowest portion of each dressed with black slip From the Xiaoyu cun kilns at Huairen, Shanxi province LEFT: RIGHT:

(.416) H. 4.8 cm; Diam. (.417) H. 4.8 cm; Diam.

9.2 cm 9.3 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

[1942.185.416—-417]

43

Virtually identical, these magnificent small wan bowls came from a large set of similarly shaped vessels. Each has rounded walls that rise from the small, circular

footring and culminate in a straight but indented lip that facilitated drinking. Set at a slight angle, the short footring has straight walls and a lightly angled bottom; the shallow base is flat.

Appearing black, a dark brown glaze covers the interior of each bowl and the upper portion of its exterior; overlapping, circular, silvery markings known as “oil spots” adorn the interiors and the upper portion of the exteriors. A coating of black slip conceals the exposed light gray body clay on the lower portion of each. The bowls were turned on the potter’s wheel, after which their lower portions were dipped in black slip. The bowls were then coated with a thin layer of dark brown glaze whose lower edge overlaps the upper edge of the black slip. Once the first coat of glaze had dried, the bowls were dipped in a more concentrated solution of the same iron-rich glaze; the lower edge of this final layer is visible on the exterior of each bowl, midway down the wall. A solution containing additional iron compounds was brushed on the surface of each bowl before firing to ensure the formation of the oil spots. The oil spots formed as iron compounds— predominately hematite—segregated themselves from the iron-saturated glaze and crystallized on the surface during firing. The bowls were fired right side up. Black glazes with circular, silvery markings are now often called youdiyou (oil-spot glazes) in Chinese, a descriptive term introduced into China in the twentieth century from Japan, where such Chinese glazes have always been prized and where they have

been known as yuteki temmoku (o1l-spot temmoku) at least since the first half of the fifteenth century." The term “oil-spot” is now used in China because the name used in the Song and Jin dynasties has been lost, connoisseurs and collectors of the day having neglected to mention it in their writings.~ It is possible, though by no means certain, that in Song times the term “partridge-feather” might have been used for a wider variety of dark glazes than just the russetsplashed types it designates today. These bowls were inspired by tea bowls made at the Jian kilns in Fujian province. Kilns competed for the same customers, so they often copied the salient characteristics of each other’s styles; since Jian ware tea bowls (see nos. 76-86) had become the most fa-

vored among connoisseurs of tea by the late Northern Song period, they naturally inspired imitations in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Most of the imitations were made at kilns in Fujian and Sichuan provinces, but some, like these two bowls, were produced in provinces farther north. In this case, the in-

dented lip and hemispherical shape resemble those of Jian ware tea bowls,’ as do the shallow base, squarecut footring, and oil-spot decoration (compare no. 85). Most telling of all, however, is the layer of jet black slip over the lower portions, applied not only to conceal the light gray body clay, but to simulate Jian ware’s signature dark gray body. Excavations have established that wares of this type were made in the Jin dynasty at the Xiaoyu cun kilns at Huairen, Shanxi province.* The oil spots on the interiors of dark-glazed vessels produced at the Xiaoyu cun kilns tend to be relatively large and thick; in addition, they rest on the surface of the

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

149

glaze and thus interrupt its luster. The bowls’ exquisitely

seum of Art, Catalogue of the Severance and Greta Millikin Collection, exh. cat., The Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, 1990), no. 15; Cox, The Book of Pottery and Porcelain, vol. 1, p. 171. pl. 49, lower left.

Museum,>

Cleveland Museum,° Royal Ontario Mu-

seum,’ Datong Municipal Museum,® Tokyo National

1 Yuteki 1s the Japanese reading of the Chinese characters youdi (“oil spot,” or “oil drop”). Used to describe a black-glazed tea bowl with silvery spots, the term yuteki appears in a fifteenth-century Japanese diary entitled Mansatjunko nikki. Quoted in Akanuma Taka, “Kensan to temmoku” [Jian Tea Bowls and Temmoku] in Chad6 shiryOkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono

Fukken sho Kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, pp. 181-82.

Toronto, acces-

meishu chubanshe [The People’s Fine Arts Press of Shanghai, China], Shanxi taoci [Ceramics of Shanxi], Zhongguo taoci quanji [A Compendium of Chinese Ceramics] series, vol. 28 (Kyoto, 1984), p. 185, no. 84 and pl. 84.

Museum,” and Percival David Foundation, University of London.'® In addition, the Fujita Museum,

Osaka, possesses a related bowl with a white rim;** the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection at The Asia Society, New York, includes an identically slipped and glazed xi brushwasher;'* and the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection has a similarly finished zhadou cuspidor."?

Unpublished; Royal Ontario Museum, slon number 942.35

8 Excavated in 1953 at Nanguan sangshuyuan, Shuo county, Shanxi province; see Zhongguo Shanghai renmin

Ke)

the precise cutting of the footrings to the careful application of black slip over the unglazed portions, support the attribuDetail, no. 43b tion to the twelfth century. Virtually identical bowls are in the Seattle Art

~“

finished details, from

10

See Tokys kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 138, no. 201; Chad6 shiryGkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku Fukken sho Kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, p. 191, fig. s. Percival David Foundation accession number PDF301; see

Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, Imperial Taste: Chinese Ceramics from the Percival David Foundation, p. 31, no. 9; Cox,

The Book of Pottery and Porcelain, vol. 1, p.

171, pl. 49, upper right.

11

See Tokysé kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Tokubetsuten, p. 139, no. 204.

Chigoku no toji:

12 See Robert D. Mowry, Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection (New York, 1981), p. 67 (1979.144); Mowry, “The Sophistication of Song Dynasty Ceramics,” p. 398, fig. 8. 13 Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection number

6220.

i)

temmoku

Much of the traditional terminology surrounding darkglazed wares that would ordinarily have been passed from generation to generation was lost during Ming and Qing

bo

times, when collectors prized Song-dynasty court and aristocratic wares with light glazes, but avoided darkglazed wares (except those from the Ding kilns), considering them too humble. See Chad6 shiryOkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku—

Fukken shod Kenyo shutsudo temmoku

to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, pp. 69, no. $3;

71, no. $9; 149, fig. 6. 4 Personal communication 1n September 1987 from Fan

LA

Dongging, a specialist in Chinese ceramics and, at the time, associate curator for ceramics at the Shanghai

On

TEA FIVE

BOWL

WITH

LARGE

GROUND

OF

INDENTED

SILVER

SPLASHES

SILVER

OIL

LIP

AND

WITH

AGAINST

A

SPOTS

Jin dynasty, probably 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide, the lowest portion dressed with dark purplish brown slip Probably from the Xiaoyu cun kilns at Huairen, Shanxi province F.. 7.§ cnx Diam.

13.6 cm

Museum.

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art

Seattle Art Museum accession number 36.Ch22.4; see Trubner, Rathbun, and Kaputa, Asiatic Art in the Seattle

Museums,

Ex-Colls. Nasli M. Heeramaneck, Greta and Severance Millikin; Cleveland Museum of Art accession number

Their wide mouths and narrow bottoms connected by slanting walls, circular bowls of this type are typically described as “funnel-shaped” in contemporary Chinese art-historical literature. Representative of

Art Museum: A Selection and Catalogue, p. 167, no. 120.

89.272; see Neils, The World of Ceramics: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art, no. 113; The Cleveland Mu-

150

44

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

[1942.185.423]

44 the type, this tea bowl has steeply canted walls that rise from the small circular foot and culminate in the subtly constricted lip. The short footring’s straight walls flare slightly outward and its bottom 1s lightly angled; the shallow base 1s flat. Appearing black, a dark brown glaze covers the interior of the bowl and the upper portion of its exterior, the glaze boasting a light haze of oil spots inside and out. Set against the oil-spot haze on the interior are five large circular splashes, each composed of numerous small, densely spaced silvery markings; several of the circular splashes failed to mature, though hints of outlines and internal markings indicate their intended shape and placement. A coating of purplish brown slip conceals the light gray body clay on the unglazed lower portion. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which the dark slip was applied to the lower portion, apparently with a brush, as indicated by distinct brush marks. The bowl was then coated with a thin layer of dark brown glaze whose lower edge overlaps the upper edge of the slip. After the first coat of glaze had dried, the bowl was dipped in a more concentrated solu-

Detail, no. 44

tion of the same

iron-rich glaze, the lower edge of which 1s visible on the exterior, midway down the bowl. The circular splashes were applied to the interior surface before firing, probably with a brush, using a solution containing additional iron compounds. The bowl was fired right side up. Bowls of this exact shape were called zhan during the Song and Jin periods; since they have always been regarded as a category of wan bowl, however, they are usually termed wan in China today. Associated more with the Jian kilns than with those in the north, such zhan bowls were used exclusively for drinking tea; bowls of this shape were the only ones used in the tea competitions popular at court and among the intelligentsia during the Norther Song. ' This bowl exactly replicates the shape of a Jian ware tea bowl (compare nos. 76-77); the oil-spot

decor and cut of the foot and base further link it to the Jian tradition, but the light gray stoneware body with its coating of purplish brown slip immediately distinguishes it from a Jian original. During the Northern Song period, when Jian ware bowls were at the height of their popularity, connoisseurs of tea naturally used tea bowls made at the Jian kilns; since such bowls were not expensive at the time, devotees of tea would have looked askance at imitation Jian bowls, which probably would not have found ready markets. After the fall of Northern Song in 1127

and the subsequent partitioning of China into Jin

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

151

(1115-1234) in the north, and Southern Song (1127-1279) 1n the south, however, commerce

between north and south was seriously curtailed. As inheritors of Northern Song culture, the citizens of the Jin state no doubt wished to continue using their beloved Jian tea bowls but found them unavailable on the market, since they were produced in the southern province of Fujian. Within this context, northern kilns likely found a market for high-quality imitations of Jian tea bowls in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, although these same wares would have been unthinkable just a few decades earlier. The similarity to the previous oil-spot bowls (no. 43) places this tea bowl firmly in the twelfth century

and establishes the Xiaoyu cun kilns at Huairen, in Shanxi province, as its probable place of manufacture. The five circular splashes not only reflect the Jin preference for abstract but structured designs, but link this bowl aesthetically to the Barron Collection bowl with its five russet splashes (no. 41). 1 Li Huibing et al., “Kaogu yanjiusuo sishinian yanjiu chengguo zhanlan bitan” [A Review of the Exhibition Featuring Forty Years of Achievement by the Institute of

Archaeology], Kaogu 1 (1991): 74.

A5Sa&b Two Lip

SMALL AND

Bowts,

EACH

WITH

PARTRIDGE-FEATHER

FLARING

MOTTLES

Jin dynasty, probably 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the russet markings in overglaze iron oxide LEFT: RIGHT:

(.430) H. 4.1 cm; Diam. (.431) H. 4.1 cm; Diam.

11.0 cm 10.9 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

[1942.185.430—-431] Identically shaped and similarly decorated, these exquisite small wan bowls are two remaining examples from a large set. Each rests on a small circular footring and has expanding walls that flare gracefully at the lip. Set at a slight angle, the short footring has straight walls and a lightly angled bottom; the shallow base 1s flat. Appearing black, a dark brown glaze

with metallic-surfaced partridge-feather mottles covers the interior of each bowl; the same dark glaze, but without mottles, covers the exterior of each, ex-

tending to the foot on the bowl at the left, but stopping short of the foot on the bowl at the right. The exposed body clay on the lower portions of the

bowls formed a buff skin. The bowls were turned on

LA

the potter’s wheel, after which they were dipped in

152

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

one bowl extending to the footring, the glaze on the other stopping short of the footring. This latter element of diversity is characteristic of transitional kiln practices of the time. 1 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Shanxi taoci, pp. 173, 184, no. 47 and pl. 47.

46 LARGE

BOWL

SPLASHES SILVER

Detail, no. 45a

the dark brown glaze; once the glaze had dried, the partridge-feather mottles were applied, perhaps by splashing. The bowls were fired right side up. The footrings and bases of these bowls are identical in size, shape, and cut to those of the small blackglazed oil-spot bowls made at the Xiaoyu cun kilns (no. 43), suggesting that these bowls may have been

made at Huairen, in Shanxi province; investigations

there have revealed that several kilns in the area made partridge-feather glazes during the Northern Song and Jin periods.’ The attribution to the twelfth century rests both on the similarity of the footrings to those of the previous oil-spot bowls, and on the

varying treatments of the exteriors—the glaze on

WITH

AGAINST

Ort

FIVE A

LARGE

GROUND

SILVER OF

SporTs

Jin dynasty, 12th-13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide He 0.0 Gis Diam.

1o.4 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

[1942.185.403] The walls of this large wan bowl expand rapidly from the broad circular footring, turning up at the top to culminate in the short vertical lip. Of intermediate height, the subtly flared footring has straight walls and an angled bottom; the base tapers to a point at its center. The tiny circular depression that constitutes

46

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

153

the floor corresponds to the convexity in the base. A dark brown glaze which appears black covers the interior of the bowl and the upper portion of its exterior; the glaze sports a thin haze of oil Detail, no. 46 spots inside and out. Set against the oilspot ground on the interior are five large circular splashes, each composed of numerous small, densely

spaced silvery markings. The lower portions of the exterior— including the footring and base—are unglazed; the exposed body clay assumed a yellowish buff skin in firing. A narrow band of medium brown glaze appears between the unglazed lower portion and the dark glaze above. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which it was dipped in a diluted glaze slurry that produced the thin, medium brown glaze. After the first coat of glaze had dried, the bowl was dipped in a more concentrated solution of the same iron-rich glaze, the lower edge of which is visible against the lighter glaze. The circular splashes were applied to the interior surface before firing, probably with a brush, using a solution containing additional iron compunds. The bowl was fired right side up. Although its place of manufacture cannot yet be ascertained, the differing cut of the footring and base indicate that this bowl was not made by the Xiaoyu cun kilns, despite its superficial similarity to wares produced there (nos. 43, 44). Also distinguishing it

from those wares are its differing proportions, its yellowish buff skin on the unglazed areas, and its use of a thin, medium brown glaze under the dark brown glaze. In addition, the glaze is subtler in interpretation than those of the Xiaoyu cun kilns, both because the oil spots are thinner and because they are partially submerged within the glaze matrix, rather than resting on its surface. While it might have been made in Henan, Heibei, or Shanxi province, its yel-

lowish buff skin suggests that the bowl might also have been made at kilns near Zibo, in Shandong province, where excavations have yielded fragments of oil-spot-glazed vessels with yellow-skinned stoneware bodies.’ The five circular splashes and the unglazed lower portion point to a date in the twelfth or early thirteenth century. PUBLISHED: Trubner, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period through Ch’ien Lung, p. 85, no. 202.

154

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

1 See Zibo shi bowuguan [Zibo Municipal Museum], “Zibo shi Boshan dajie yaozhi” [The Boshan Avenue Kiln Site in Zibo],

Wenwu 9 (1987): 11-20 and 40; Zhang

Guangming and Bi Siliang, “Shandong Zibo yaozhi chutu di youdi heiyou ciqi” [The Recovery of BlackGlazed Stonewares with Oil-Spot Decor from the Kiln Site at Zibo, Shandong], Kaogu 9 (1988): 836-41.

af LARGE

BOWL

SPLASHES

WITH

AGAINST

HARE’ S-FUR

FIVE A

LARGE

RUSSET

SUBTLE

GROUND

Jin dynasty, 12th—-13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide H. 7.9 cm; Diam.

20.1 cm

Mr. and Mrs. James E. Breece III

Arcing gracefully upward from the circular footring, the rounded sides of this large wan bowl terminate in the straight-edged lip. Of intermediate height, the lightly flared footring has straight walls and an angled bottom; the base tapers to a point at its center. The tiny circular depression that constitutes the floor corresponds to the convexity in the base. Appearing black, a lustrous dark brown glaze covers the interior of the bowl and the upper portion of its exterior. The lip is edged in russet inside and out; the remainder of the dark brown glaze boasts a pattern of thin vertical russet markings known as a “hare’s-fur” pattern. Set against the hare’s-fur ground on the interior are five large circular splashes, each composed of numerous small, densely spaced russet flecks; like those

on the previous bowl (no. 46), the circular splashes are quiet and unassertive. A russet pool enlivens the bowl’s tiny floor. The lower portions of the exterior—including the footring and base—are unglazed; the exposed body clay assumed a yellowish buff skin in firing. A narrow band of medium brown glaze appears between the unglazed lower portion and the dark glaze above. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which it was dipped in a diluted glaze slurry that produced the thin coat of medium brown glaze. After the first coat of glaze had dried, the bowl was dipped in a more concentrated solution of the same iron-rich glaze, the irregular lower edge of which is visible against the thin, lighter glaze. Once the dark brown glaze had dried, the nm was dipped in iron oxide to create its distinctive russet markings; the circular splashes were then applied

to the interior surface, probably with a brush, using a solution containing additional iron compounds. The bowl was fired right side up. The identical footrings, tiny circular floors, and

medium brown underglazes indicate that this bowl and the previous oil-spot bowl (no. 46) were made by the same kiln, at about the same time. The dark brown glazes are similar, if not identical, their varying finishes resulting from the use of different ironbearing solutions to produce the decoration— oilspot markings in one bowl, and russet hare’s-fur markings in the other. PROVENANCE: J. Hellner Collection

48 LARGE

BOWL

SPLASHES RUSSET

WITH

AGAINST

FIVE A

LARGE

GROUND

RUSSET OF

FLECKS

Jin dynasty, 12th—13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide H. 7.9 cm; Diam.

19.4 cm

R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection

[6392]

Rising from the broad circular foot, the walls of this large wan bowl flare outward and then turn up to form the vertical rim, a rim clearly defined on the interior by a ridge approximately one-half inch below the lip. Lightly flared, the short footring has straight walls and a flat bottom; the base is slightly convex. The tiny circular depression that constitutes the floor corresponds to the convexity in the base. Appearing black, a lustrous dark brown glaze covers the interior of the bowl and the uppermost portion of its exterior. The lip is edged in russet inside and out, while the remainder of the dark brown glaze shows a pattern of russet flecks, or dapples. Set against the dappled ground on the interior are five large, bold, circular splashes, each composed of numerous small, densely spaced russet flecks. The lower portions of the exterlor—including the footring and base—are unglazed; the exposed body clay formed a buff skin in firing. A narrow band of caramel glaze appears between the unglazed lower portion and the dark glaze above. The bow] was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which it was dipped in a diluted glaze slurry that produced the thin coat of caramel glaze around the exterior’s midsection. After the first coat of glaze had dried, the bowl was dipped in a more concentrated solution of the same iron-rich glaze, the lower edge of which 1s visible just below the lip on the exterior. Once the dark glaze had dried, the rim was dipped in iron oxide to create its distinctive russet

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

155

markings; the circular splashes were then applied to the interior surface, probably with a brush, using a solution containing additional iron compounds. The bowl was fired right side up. This bow] shares stylistic features with the previous two bowls (nos. 46, 47), indicating that it too was made in the twelfth or thirteenth century, during the Jin dynasty. The differing cut of the footring and the varying approach to the glazing of the exterior points to another—and as yet unidentified —kiln of manufacture.

ey TEA

BOWL

WITH

BROWN

HARE’S-FUR

MARKINGS

Jin dynasty, probably Northern black ware stoneware with dark glaze iron oxide, the brown slip H. 8.4 cm; Diam.

12th century of Cizhou type: light gray brown glaze, the markings in overlower portion dressed with dark

15.6 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

the straight-edged lip. Set at a slight angle, the short footring has straight walls and a wide, flat bottom; the shallow base is also flat. A dark brown glaze which appears black covers the interior of the bowl and the upper portion of its exterior; a russet band edges the lip inside and out, while russet hare’s-fur streaks breathe life into other areas of the semilustrous dark glaze. A band of bluish green tea-dust glaze extends around the midsection of the exterior. The lowest portion of the bowl is unglazed, the light gray stoneware body concealed by a thin coat of purplish brown slip. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which the liver-colored slip was applied to its lower portion, apparently with a brush, as evidenced by the telltale brush strokes. Once the slip had dried, the bowl was dipped in a diluted glaze slurry that resulted in the layer of tea-dust glaze, the twin parabola shapes of the glaze’s lower edge indicating that the bowl was actually dipped in the slurry twice. After the first coat of glaze had dried, the

dark brown glaze was applied, again by dipping the

[1942.185.421]

This wan bowl has rounded sides that curve upward in a continuous arc from the small circular foot to

156

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Detail, no. 49

bowl

two

times.

SO TEA

BOWL

WITH

SILVERY

BROWN

OIL

SPOTS

Jin dynasty, 12th—13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings 1n overglaze iron oxide B.. 77 eis Dar.

15.0

The Scheinman Collection

A dip of the mm into a solution rich in iron compounds resulted in the russet lip, and the application of a minute quantity of the same solution to other parts of the dark glaze produced the hare’s-fur effect. The bowl was fired right side up. Where exposed to the atmosphere of the kiln, the thin wash of glaze applied under the primary glaze in Song and Jin dark-glazed wares occasionally matured a bluish green color—the effect termed “tea-dust.”’ Although popular during the Tang dynasty (see no. 6), tea-dust glazes seldom appear as primary glazes on wares of the Song and Jin periods; the two vessels in this exhibition stand as exceptions to the rule (see nos. 18, 54). Though not necessarily from the same kiln, a visually related bowl in The Art Institute of Chicago also has a band of tea-dust underglaze on its exterior.’ Made for drinking tea, this bowl takes its inspiration from a Jian ware zhan tea bowl (compare no. 76). The hare’s-fur glaze, shallow base, and short footring with wide, flat bottom replicate essential features of Jian ware, even if the gray stoneware body with its coating of purplish brown slip quickly identifies this bowl as a product of a northern, Cizhou-type kiln. As handsome and satisfying as it is, the shape only approximates that of a Jian tea bowl. The relative unavailability of Jian ware in northern China during Jin times created a demand for such Cizhou-type imitations in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, just as the same conditions enabled the Xiaoyu cun kilns at Huairen to find a market for

[9A]

The walls of this wan bowl flare outward from the small circular foot and then turn up to form the vertical lip. Set at a slight angle, the short footring has straight walls and a wide, flat bottom; the shallow base is also flat. A dark brown glaze, appearing black, covers the interior of the bowl and the upper portion of its exterior; an oil-spot pattern comprising numerous rust-brown spots, each with a silvery metallic fleck at its center, adorns the dark glaze. A band of medium brown glaze encircles the exterior’s midsection. The lowest portion of the bowl is unglazed, the exposed body clay appearing grayish buff. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which it was

dipped in a diluted glaze slurry that resulted in the band of medium brown glaze. Once the first coat of glaze had dried, the bowl was dipped in a concentrated slurry of the same glaze, which resulted in the dark brown glaze. After the glazes had dried, a solution rich in iron compounds was applied to create the silvery brown oil spots. The bowl was fired right side up.

their interpretations of Jian ware (see nos. 43, 44).

The short, meticulously cut footring of this bowl and the application of slip to its unglazed areas are twelfth-century characteristics, providing a clue to its date of manufacture. LA

1 Unpublished; Art Institute of Chicago accession number 64.761.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

157

Although numerous Cizhou-type kilns made vessels with silvery brown oil-spot glazes during the Jin period, few such vessels remain today. Though produced at different kilns, a bowl in The Art Institute

of Chicago’ and a small jar in the Harvard University Art Museums” have visually similar glazes. This bowl’s footring and base are almost identical in shape and cut to those of the previous hare’s-furglazed tea bowl (no. 49), indicating that the two pieces were made about the same time, perhaps even at the same kiln. 1 Unpublished; Art Institute of Chicago accession number 64.761.

2 Unpublished; Harvard University Art Museum accession number

1991.23S.

51 BOWL

WITH

RUST

BROWN

MARKINGS

Jin to Yuan dynasty, 13th—14th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in overglaze iron oxide H. 8.8 cm; Diam.

19.7 cm

Ralph C. Marcove, M.D.

158

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Set on a circular foot of intermediate height, this deep wan bowl has straight sides that project outward in V-fashion and then turn up at the top to form the vertical lip. The small floor coincides with the center of the slightly convex base. Its bottom flat, the lightly angled footring descends from a narrow but precisely cut horizontal ledge on the underside of the bowl. A dark brown glaze covers the interior of the bowl and the upper half of its exterior. A thin, rust-colored slip on the surface of the dark glaze imparts the variegated appearance —partly washed, partly mottled— that characterizes this handsome bow]; continuing beyond the edge of the dark glaze on the exterior, the slip covers the lower half of the bowl but stops short of the foot. The unglazed body clay of the footring and deep base fired a light oatmeal color. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which it was dipped in the dark glaze slurry; once the piece had dried, it was dipped into the russet slurry two or three times, as revealed by the slip’s irregular lower edge. Smudges at the slip edge and finger impressions on the unglazed portions indicate the points where the potter held the bowl during

application of the slip. The bowl was fired right side up. In the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, most kilns finished their dark-glazed wares with either a russet skin or a distinctive pattern of flecks or

mottles. The Jin taste for abstract but structured designs inspired the creation of vessels with large russet or oil-spot splashes—typically three or five— from the mid-twelfth century through the early thirteenth. Decorative schemes that could be created quickly and efficiently came to the fore in the early thirteenth century—and continued into the fourteenth— which sometimes led to the application of a wash of slip over a dark glaze, which produced the watery effect seen on the interior of this unusual bowl. The increasing use of brown slip in the darkglazed wares finds a parallel in the ever larger splashes of purple that were employed in the decoration of Jun ware in Jin and Yuan times. The deep base and the relatively thick walls of the footring suggest a date in the thirteenth or early fourteenth century for this bowl.

oe LONG-NECKED,

PEAR-SHAPED

WITH

DECORATION

Two

STYLIZED

BOTTLE

OF

BiRDps

IN

FLIGHT

Jin dynasty, late 12th—first half 13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the russet decoration painted in overglaze iron oxide Hy 30.4 cmt Dian.

16,0 cn

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

[1942.185.452] Set on a short, circular foot, this pear-shaped bottle has an ovoid body from which springs the long neck with its flaring lip. A dark brown glaze that appears black where thick and caramel where thin covers the exterior of the bottle, except for the bottom of the footring. The slip-painted decoration around the midsection depicts two birds in flight, one on either side. Each abstractly rendered bird is presented from two vantage points simultaneously: the head 1s shown in profile, its short, pointed beak immediately recognizable; the body 1s shown from above, reduced to eight feathers that radiate outward from the spiraling neck, with a large, comma-shaped brush stroke on

either side indicating the outstretched wings; the tail is shown partly from above, partly in profile, comprising three short strokes arrayed about a long, downward-scrolling stroke 1n the center. The bottle’s thick footring has an indented ring about its middle and a small, everted lip at its bottom; although its

outer edge is chamfered, the bottom of the footring is flat, as is the deep base. The bottle was wheelturned in three sections—the bowl-like lower portion, the conical upper portion, and the neck and flaring lip—that were luted together after drying; following assembly, the bottle was dipped in the dark glaze slurry and the bottom of the foot immediately wiped clean. After the coating of glaze had dried, the two birds were painted on the surface with a brush using a slip rich in iron oxides. The bottle was fired right side up. Used for serving wine in Jin and Yuan times, pear-shaped bottles of this type are usually called e1ther ping [bottles] or changjing ping [long-necked bottles] in Chinese. A few authors label them yuhuchun ping, though that term is more typically reserved for the porcelain bottles of kindred shape made later at Jingdezhen in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries." Although pear-shaped bottles are often said to have first appeared during the Yuan dynasty, that statement holds true only for the porcelain yuhuchun ping examples made at Jingdezhen. The form originated in silver* and was quickly imitated in ceramic ware, appearing in Ding ware in the eleventh century,’ in imperial Ru ware in the early twelfth,* and in guan and Longquan celadon wares in the late twelfth century.° The 1956 recovery of two blackglazed stoneware bottles of similar shape in Datong, Shanxi province, from a Jin tomb dated by funerary epitaph to 1164, archaeologically attests the form’s occurrence in Cizhou-type ware 1n the mid-twelfth century.° Although closely related in form, pearshaped bottles from Jin and Yuan show subtle differences in interpretation: Jin-period bottles have proportionally smaller bodies and longer necks, while those from the Yuan have larger, fuller bodies and shorter necks. Dark-glazed, pear-shaped bottles with painted decoration have traditionally been assigned dates ranging from Northern Song to Yuan. Although such bottles have been unearthed in China,’ none

has come from either a kiln site or a securely dated context, so current archaeology offers few clues to the date and place of manufacture of these pieces. Although they do not find exact parallels in the decoration on other ceramic wares of the day, the wonderfully calligraphic birds of this prece—which are sometimes mistakenly described as flowers—find counterparts in Northern Song paintings. At least two hanging scrolls in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, include birds with outstretched wings, of a

type that could have inspired the decoration on this bottle: “A Pheasant and Thorny Shrubs,” attributed

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

1509

No

A

to Huang Jucai (933—after 993), and “Hare and Mag-

pies,” by Cui Bo (active 1050-1080).° Clearly produced by Cizhou-type kilns, bottles of the type represented here developed in concert with

standard Cizhou wares with painted decoration. Since the earliest Cizhou wares with such decoration date to the Jin period, probably to the mid-twelfth century, a Northern Song date is unlikely for any of the dark-glazed bottles with painted decoration. Limited to two birds in flight—without context and without painted borders—the decorative scheme relates to that on twelfth-century Cizhou vessels with slip-painted designs representing discrete floral sprays.” More to the point, this bottle’s bold, calligraphic brushwork and fan-shaped arrangement of the birds’ body feathers relate closely to the slippainted, stylized floral designs on standard Cizhou bottles produced in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century at kilns in Yu county, Henan prov-

ince.’ The birds are much more elaborate than

those that sometimes grace fourteenth-century stan-

160

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

dard Cizhou wares with painted designs; in such fourteenth-century pieces, the birds are often so schematized that they could easily be mistaken for stylized flowers, were it not for their small beaks." The footring’s thickness accords with the latetwelfth- or early-thirteenth-century date proposed here, as does its elaborate profile, with an indented

ring around the middle and an everted lip at the bottom. Unusual in the general context of Jin-period ceramics, this bottle’s fully glazed foot and base are typical of the subgroup of dark-glazed Cizhou-type wares with painted decoration. Bottles related in shape and decoration appear in many collections, including the Brooklyn Museum,'* The Cleveland Museum of Art,’? the San Antonio

Museum of Art,"* the Art Institute of Chicago,*> the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco,'® and the British Museum, London. *”

PUBLISHED: Trubner, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period through Ch’ien Lung, p. 86, no. 208; Trubner,

“Tz’u-chou and Honan Temmoku,” pp. 161-62, fig. 11; Max Loehr, Chinese Art: Symbols and Images, exh. cat., Jewett Arts Center, Wellesley College (Wellesley, 1967), pp. 45-46, no. 25. 1 The name yuhuchun ping defies literal translation, so the descriptive “pear-shaped bottle” is used instead; the components of the name mean “jade” [yu], “storage jar” [hu], “spring” [chun], and “bottle” [ping]. Yuhuchun ping bottles

bo

made at Jingdezhen are of white porcelain and may be decorated with designs painted in underglaze cobalt blue or copper red.

13

Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas

14 Unpublished; on loan to the San Antonio Museum of Art from Walter E. Brown; San Antonio Museum loan number L.92.16.14/372. Ex-Coll. J. Hellner. 15

”A

Society, The Ceramic Art of China, n.p., pl. 56, no. 83.

See Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, respectively pp. 141, pl. 112, and 175, pl. 141.

6 Shanxi Yungang guwu baoyangsuo gqinglizu [Investiga-

tion Department, Antiquities Preservation Bureau, Yungang, Shanxi Province], “Shanxi Datong shi Xinanjiao Tang Liao Jin mu qingli jianbao” [A Brief Report on the Investigations of the Tang, Liao, and Jin Tombs at Xinanjiao, Datong, Shanxi Province], Kaogu tongxun 6 (1958): n.p., pl. 8, fe, 4.

7 See Li Yong, “Wenbo jianxun: Liulin xian chutu heiyou tiexiuhua changjing ping” [Museum and Cultural News: The Recovery ofa Black-Glazed, Long-Necked Bottle with Russet Decoration in Liulin County, Shanxi co

Province],

Wenwu 8 (1986): 40.

See Editorial Committee of the Joint Board of Directors of the National Palace Museum and National Central Museum, Three Hundred Masterpieces of Chinese Painting in the Palace Museum, vol. 2, n.p., nos. §7 and 81, respec-

‘©

tively.

See Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China, pp. 198-205, nos. 87-90.

10

See ibid., p. 175, no. 75.

11 See Medley, Ytian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p., pl. 100A; Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China, p. 150, fig. 168.

12 Unpublished; Brooklyn Museum accession number

§5.143.

Unpublished; Art Institute of Chicago accession number 1941.660. sion number B60 P134. The Asian Art Museum bottle is

embellished with floral sprays rather than birds; in addition, its glaze fired a brownish olive tea-dust color;

painted in dark, rust-brown slip, the leaf sprays appear

purplish brown against the tea-dust glaze.

17 Of similar type, the British Museum bottle is embellished with floral sprays rather than birds; British Museum accession number OA 1947.7-12.148; see Vainker, Chinese

Pottery and Porcelain, p. 90, pl. 67; Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 197, fig. 267; Medley, Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p., pl. 109A.

Gongyi meishu bian: Jinyin boli falang qi, pp. 39, 72, no. 139.

4 See Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, p. 91, pl. 71; The Arts Council of Great Britain and The Oriental Ceramic

of Art

16 Unpublished; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco acces-

City, Missouri, vol. 2, sth ed., p. 93, no. 35-124/1; Yang,

3 See Vainker, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain from Prehistory to the Present, p. 89, pl. 66; The Arts Council of Great Britain and The Oriental Ceramic Society, The Ceramic Art of China, n.p., pl. 41, no. 65.

of Art accession number 30.310;

Western Reserve University, 1977), 395-98.

Silver bottles from the Song dynasty are rare, but related examples from the Yuan are known; see Laurence Sickman, “Chinese Silver of the Yuan Dynasty,” Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America (now, Archives of Asian Art) 9 (1957): 80-81; Taggart, McKenna, and Wilson,

The Cleveland Museum

see Henry John Anthony Kleinhenz, Pre-Ming Porcelains in the Chinese Ceramic Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art (facsimile reproduction of a Ph.D. dissertation, Case

3 Ovoip

BOTTLE

WITH

RINGED

MOUTH

OF

STYLIZED

Two

AND

SMALL,

DOUBLE-

DECORATION

BIRDS

IN

FLIGHT

Jin dynasty, late 12th—first half 13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration painted in overglaze iron oxide H.

19.8 cm; Diam.

17.5 cm

Robert M. Ferris IV

The walls of this ovoid bottle rise rapidly from the circular foot to the bulging shoulder, where they curve inward and ascend to the short neck with its double-ringed lip. Concentric potting marks impart a lightly stepped effect to the relatively deep, flat, countersunk base. The thick coat of dark brown glaze on the bottle’s exterior appears bluish black, while the thin coat of the same glaze on the inside of the footring and base appears dark caramel brown. Only the bottom of the relatively thick footring remains unglazed; the exposed body clay fired light gray. The slip-painted decoration around the shoulder depicts two birds in flight, one on either side. Each abstractly rendered bird is presented from two vantage points: the head and tail in profile, the body from above. The head includes a pointed beak, while the body comprises eight feathers that radiate outward, fanlike, from the hooked neck, with a long,

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

161

bulging brush stroke on either side indicating the outstretched wings; representing the tail 1s a single, thick, upswept brush stroke that projects from amidst the feathers that make up the body. The bottle was wheel-turned—as indicated by the circular potting marks—in sections that were luted together after drying. Following assembly, the bottle was dipped in the thin glaze slurry that produced the caramel glaze

on the base; once the first coat of glaze had dried, the

bottle was immersed in a concentrated glaze slurry that resulted in the thick bluish black glaze, and then the bottom of the foot was wiped clean. Small interruptions in the glaze around the foot indicate the points where the potter held the bottle while dipping it into the glaze slurry. After the glaze had dried, the two birds were painted on with a brush, using a slip rich in iron oxides. The bottle was fired right side up.

bottles) in Chinese, such bottles appeared late in the Jin dynasty and continued into the Yuan, apparently evolving from the ovoid bottles with everted lip that were popular in the Northern Song (see no. 24).

Fourteenth-century bottles of this type in standard

(“A Oo

Probably sealed with a fabric-wrapped wooden dowel, ovoid bottles were used for storing wine and other liquids. Called xiaokou ping (small-mouthed

Detail, no. 53

162

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

7 The Cleveland Museum

ther kiln sites or datable contexts, ovoid bottles with

painted decoration are dated by analogy to related examples in standard Cizhou ware. This bottle’s distinctive shape, bold decoration, and relatively elabo-

rate painting suggest a date of manufacture in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. By contrast, the related birds on fourteenth-century standard Cizhou wares with painted decoration often appear, much simplified, in the company of floral sprays; indeed, the birds on those pieces are often so succinctly executed that only their beaks identify them as birds, and thus distinguish them from stylized flowers.” Closely related bottles are in the Meiyintang? and

Dr. Robert Barron* Collections, and in the Harvard

University Art Museums,° the Minneapolis Institute of Arts,° The Cleveland Museum of Art,’ the San Antonio Museum of Art,” and the Royal

i)

bad

Ontario Museum.?

See Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China, p. 150, fig. 168. See ibid.; Medley,

pl. 100A.

Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p.,

3 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, p. 254, no. 465.

LA

4 Unpublished; the glaze on the Barron Collection example fired a brownish olive tea-dust color; painted in dark, rust brown slip, the birds appear purplish brown against the tea-dust glaze. Unpublished; Harvard University Art Museums accession number 1991.226. The Harvard bottle has two small loop handles at the base of the neck, placed one on either side, Nn

so they appear to separate the birds.

Unpublished; Minneapolis Institute of Arts accession

number 87.66.

Unpublished; on loan to the San Antonio Museum of Art from Walter E. Brown; San Antonio Museum loan number L.92.16.12/371. Ex-Coll. J. Hellner.

of Art

9 Unpublished; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, accession number 918.21.396. The ROM bottle substitutes

leaf sprays for the present bottle’s birds; like the Barron Collection bottle (see note 3 above), the glaze on the ROM example fired a brownish olive tea-dust color; painted in dark, rust brown slip, the leaf sprays appear purplish brown against the tea-dust glaze.

set, as on this bottle, to dark rust brown, sometimes

with a metallic sheen, as on the previous bottle. The diverse appearances arise both from slight differences in kiln atmosphere and from minor variations in the iron-oxide colorants added to the slip and glaze slurries. Since they have not yet been recovered from ei-

of Art accession number 48.213;

see Kleinhenz, Pre-Ming Porcelains in the Chinese Ceramic Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, pp. 406-8.

Co

Cizhou ware are usually larger, and they tend to have slumping shoulders and a proportionally wider foot. The constricted foot and relatively flat shoulders place the present bottle midway between its Northern Song prototypes and its fourteenth-century descendants." The dark brown glazes on related slip-painted bottles sometimes appear black, as on the previous long-necked bottle (no. 52), but in other instances they appear bluish black, as in this case. In like manner, the hues of the painted designs range from rus-

oF WIDE-MOUTHED DECORATION IN

OF

OvoOID JAR WITH THREE

STYLIZED

BIRDS

FLICHT

Jin dynasty, late 12th-first half 13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware glazed in hues of greenish tea-dust with blue undertones, the decoration painted in overglaze iron oxide HH, 21.4. em: Diam.

27.2 cm

Robert M. Ferris IV

Of strongly ovoid form, this guan jar rests on a small circular foot; its walls impart a subtle S-curve to the profile as they flare to create the bulging belly and

then turn inward to form the short, canted shoulder.

A short lip caps the jar’s mouth. The dark brown glaze that covers the jar’s exterior— including its

short, flat, countersunk base and the interior of its

footring—assumed a variegated greenish brown teadust tone in firing, maturing a warm chestnut hue in some places, a cool navy blue in others. Appearing medium brown, a thin coat of the same glaze covers the interior, excluding only the floor. The slippainted decoration around the shoulder depicts three birds ascending in flight, each abstractly rendered bird shown partly from above, partly in profile. The unglazed body clay exposed on the floor and on the bottom of the footring fired light gray. The jar was wheel-turned, as indicated by the circular potting marks. After it had dried, the jar was dipped in a thin glaze slurry; once the first coat of glaze had dried, the piece was immersed in a concentrated slurry of the same glaze, and then the bottom of the foot and the floor were wiped clean. After the glaze had dried once more, the three birds were painted around the shoulder with a brush, using a slip rich in iron oxides. The jar was fired right side up.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

163

Wide-mouthed guan jars of this type trace their origins to the similarly shaped, though much squatter, jars that evolved in the third or fourth century B.C.;' related jars persisted through the Han and Six Dynasties periods,~ taking on the familiar proportions associated with this jar in the Tang dynasty.’ The shape continued into Yuan and Ming times, becoming taller in proportion to its girth and assuming a short, vertical, collarlike neck.*

Because it was slightly underfired, this splendid jar’s glaze matured a speckled tea-dust color rather than the bluish black that was surely intended (compare no. $3). With its variegated surface and undercurrent of navy blue, the glaze resembles the band of similar tea-dust glaze that encircles the exterior of the tea bowl from the Harvard collections discussed above (no. 49). The tea-dust glazes on most related vessels are brownish olive, rather than bluish green with brown undertones, and they are more homo-

geneously colored. The mottled coloring only enhances the appeal of this unusual jar.

164

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

This jar’s greater diameter allowed it to accommodate three birds rather than the usual two. Some-

what more schematically rendered than those on the

preceding bottles (nos. 52, 53), the birds embody

some of the most exquisitely calligraphic brushwork to be found on any Chinese ceramics of Song, Jin, or Yuan date. The jar has been assigned to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century on the basis both of its shape and of the similiarity of its painted decoration to that on the previous bottles (nos. 52, §3). The Victoria and Albert Museum,

London, owns

a related jar.° Sporting a rich black glaze, a similarly shaped and decorated jar is in the collection of Walter Hochstadter.’

t See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, pp. 86-87, no. 132. 2 See Tokyo kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Tokubetsuten,

p. 42, no.

$0.

Chiigoku no toji:

3 See Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware, p. 67,

no. 207.

4 See Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, pp. 144-45, nos. 139-40; Medley, Yiian Porcelain and

Stoneware, n.p., pls. 95B, 96B; Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China, pp.

190-91, no. 83 and figs. 226-30; 206-7, no. 91 and figs. 251-58; 210-11, no. 93 and figs. 268-73.

s Compare the glazes on the unpublished pear-shaped bottle in the Asian Art Museum of San

Francisco (acces-

sion number B60 P134), and on the unpublished smallmouthed bottles in the collections of Dr. Robert Barron and of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (accession

oO

number 918.21.396). See Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, p. 121, pl. 96.

7 See Trubner,

Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period

through Ch’ien Lung, p. 86, no. 20S.

was fired right side up.

While a number of related vessels sport flowers

rather than birds as decoration, this handsome bottle

numbers among the few that feature identifiable flowers; most such vessels claim floral designs so abstractly rendered as to defy precise identification.’ One of the “flowers of the four seasons,” the chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum indicum) stands for autumn and for the ninth month of the Chinese lunar year—which corresponds to late September and October in the Gregorian calendar. The flower 1s srouped together with the peony, lotus, and plum,

which symbolize spring, summer, and winter, respec-

tively. Called ju hua in Chinese, the chrysanthemum also symbolizes literary pursuits, since it was the favorite flower of the celebrated nature poet Tao Qian (Tao Yuanming;

55 Ovoip

BOTTLE

MOUTH Two

the floral sprays were painted on the surface with a brush, using a slip laden with iron oxides. The bottle

AND

WITH

SMALL,

DECORATION

STYLIZED

RINGED

OF

CHRYSANTHEMUM

SPRAYS

Jin to Yuan dynasty, 13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration painted in overglaze iron oxide H. 21.2 cm; Diam.

365-427).

The sprightly painting of this piece shows a stylistic kinship to that on two standard Cizhou zunshaped vases with painted floral decoration believed to have been made at kilns in Yu county, Henan province, in the thirteenth century: one in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto,” and the other in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Lesser.* The similarity suggests that this bottle was likely produced in the thirteenth century, as does

20.5 cm

Dr. Robert Barron

“"N A

Probably used for wine, this ovoid xiaokou ping bottle stands on a circular foot, its walls expanding rapidly to the bulging shoulder, where they turn inward and ascend to the short neck with its ringed lip. The circular depression at its center imparts a lightly stepped effect to the deep, flat, countersunk base. Appearing bluish black, a thick coat of dark brown glaze covers the bottle’s exterior, excluding only the bottom of the foot, where the exposed body clay fired light gray. Painted in russet slip, the decoration around the shoulder depicts two chrysanthemum sprays, one on either side, each abstractly rendered spray including a blossom at the end ofa leafy stem. The flowers comprise a series of short, staccato brush strokes that radiate from a dot at the blossom’s center; represented by longer strokes, the surrounding leaves issue from the lightly painted stem. The bottle was wheel-turned— as indicated by the circular potting marks—1in sections that were luted together after drying. Following assembly, the bottle was immersed twice in the glaze slurry; the bottom of the foot was wiped clean after the second dipping. Once the glaze had dried,

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

165

the base, which is wider in proportion to the vessel than are the bases of the preceding vessels (nos. 53, 54). In addition, the ringed mouth represents a type that became popular in the thirteenth century; its gently indented sides and lightly flaring base suggest that it may descend from the double-ringed mouth that was popular in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century (compare no. $3). A closely related bottle, also with ringed neck and painted chrysanthemum decor, 1s in the collection of Simon Kwan, Hong Kong;* another related bottle is

in the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Tianjin, China.°

1 See, for example, the pear-shaped bottle in the British Museum, London (accession number OA 1947.7-12.148): Vainker, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, p. 90, pl. 67; Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 197, fig. 267; Medley, Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p., pl. 109A; or see the elongated bottle in the Pierre de Menasce

Collection,

The

Arts Council of Great Britain and The Oriental Ceramic Society, The Ceramic Art of China, n.p., pl. 65, no. 99.

2 See Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China, p. 180, fig. 207. 3 See ibid., p. 181, no. 78. 4 See Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, pp. 346-47, no. 15S.

5 Tianjin shi yishu bowuguan, Tianjin shi yishu bowuguan cangci, p. 188, no. 62 and pl. 62.

56 LARGE OVOID BOTTLE WITH SMALL, RINGED MOUTH AND DECORATION OF Two STYLIZED FLORAL SPRAYS Jin to Yuan dynasty, 13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration painted in overglaze iron oxide H. 40.0 cm; Diam.

35.6 cm

R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection

[6280]

The walls of this unusually large, ovoid xiaokou ping bottle rise steeply to the bulging shoulder, where they constrict to culminate in the short neck with its ringed lip. Three large white spur marks appear on the broad footring, which circumscribes the exceptionally shallow, flat, countersunk base. A dark brown glaze that appears black covers the bottle inside and out, excepting only the footring and base, and the top of the lip; the exposed body clay in those areas assumed a grayish buff skin in the kiln. Abstract floral decoration boldly painted in russet slip emblazons the body of this vessel, a blossom and several

166

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

leafy stems appearing on the “front” and a branch of foliage on the “back.” The bottle was wheel-turned —as indicated by the circular potting marks—1in sections that were luted together after drying; following assembly, the bottle was immersed twice in the glaze slurry, after which the top of the lip and the foot and base were wiped clean. The results of incomplete wiping, numerous caramel brown dots and flecks reveal that glaze was initially applied to the the base and foot. Once the glaze had dried, the floral sprays were painted on the surface with a brush, using a slip heavy with iron oxides. The bottle was fired nght side up; the unglazed mouth rim suggests that the bottle might have been fired with a cover in place. This bottle, like the previous one from the Barron Collection (no. $5), boasts relatively naturalistic floral decoration. While the single blossom resembles an orchid on first inspection, the leaves and branches signal that the plant is a tree peony. History records that the indigenous tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa) was introduced into the imperial gardens in the late sixth or early seventh century, during the short-lived Sui dynasty. With its large, showy blossoms, the tree peony quickly captured the imagination of the Chinese, who began to cultivate 1t on a wide scale; it

numbered among the most popular flowers in the realm by the eighth century and has retained its appeal to the present day." The peony frequently

the tree peony is formally known in Chinese as mudan hua, which means “male vermilion flower” and

indicates that it is looked upon as the flower associated with the yang, or male, principle in the dualistic yin-yang system of cosmology. It is, however, also regarded as a symbol of feminine beauty and as an emblem of love and affection. Representing spring, the tree peony figures among the flowers of the four seasons, standing alongside the lotus, chrysanthemum, and plum, which respectively stand for summer, autumn, and winter; in addition, the peony

represents the third month in the Chinese lunar calendar,* which generally corresponds to late March and much of April in the Western calendar. Because of its abundant petals, the tree peony is viewed as a symbol of wealth and honor, and is thus often called fugui hua (honor [and] wealth flower). Not only does this bottle boast unusually vigorous painting, it claims an exceptionally robust form, a form whose strength derives from its deft combination of bulging, flat-topped shoulders and constricted foot. In bottles of lesser refinement, the shoulders

slump or the foot is too wide in proportion to the shoulders, either of which quickly robs the form of its power. This bottle’s large size and full rounded shape support the attribution to the thirteenth century, as do its proportions and its ringed mouth with indented sides and lightly flaring base. The similarity of its naturalistic painting style to that on the previous bottle (no. $5) further supports the attribution.

The R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection includes a second large bottle with painted floral deco-

ration;? there are also related bottles in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,* The Cleveland Museum of

Art,’ and the Tokyo National Museum.° A guan jar in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco has a virtually identical footring and base and a closely related decorative scheme that comprises three peonies painted in overglaze russet slip.’ 1 For information on the tree peony in China, see Maggie Keswick,

The Chinese Garden: History, Art and Architecture

(London and New York, 1986), 2nd rev. ed, pp. 181-83.

2 The flowers associated with the twelve months of the

Chinese lunar calendar are plum, peach, peony, cherry,

magnolia, pomegranate, lotus, pear, mallow, chrysanthe-

mum, gardenia, and poppy.

of Fine Arts, Boston,

The Charles B. Hoyt

bo

Collection: Memorial Exhibition, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, 1952), p. 78, accession number §0.1593. s The Cleveland Museum of Art accession number 48.218; see Kleinhenz, Pre-Ming Porcelains in the Chinese Ceramic Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, pp. 409-11. Nn

due to its popularity and to the size of its blossoms,

Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection number 6290.

4 See Museum

“I

appears in Tang-dynasty Buddhist painting and in the ornament of Tang gold and silver vessels; doubtless the inspiration for the present design, numerous secular paintings of blossoming peonies survive from the Song dynasty, most painted in colors on silk. Often called the “King of Flowers,” or hua wang,

See Medley, Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, opposite p. 132, color pl. H; Tokyo kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 151, no. 223. Unpublished; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco acces-

sion number B60 P4+.

Sf LONG-NECKED, WITH

METAL

PEAR-SHAPED

RIM

AND

BOTTLE

DECORATION

OF SCROLLING FLOWERS AND BIRDS IN FLIGHT AMIDST CLOUDS Jin dynasty, 13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration in overglaze silver, with brush-written inscription on the base reading Zhang Hong hua H, 27.0 coy Diam.

14.4 cm

R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection

[6310]

Set on a short, circular foot, this rare pear-shaped bottle has an ovoid body from which rises the long neck with its flaring lip. A dark brown glaze that appears black where thick and medium brown where thin (as at the lip) covers the exterior, including the outside of the footring. Around its midsection, the bottle has three horizontal registers of decoration in overglaze silver, the silver now tarnished and partially eroded. Double-bowstring lines frame the composition top and bottom and also separate the horizontal registers. Serving as an emphatic border, the narrow register at the top sports a single row of stylized blossoms; the middle register presents two pairs of confronting, long-tailed birds amidst scattered cloud heads; and the wide register at the bottom features four evenly spaced peony blossoms amidst scrolling foliage. Remains of a silver band encircle the lip, and a ring of accretions around the middle of the foot suggests that it might once have boasted a silver band as well. The thick footring has a flat bottom and its walls flare lightly; of intermediate depth, the base is flat. Although glaze coats the interior of the footring, the bottom of the footring and the base are unglazed; the exposed body clay assumed a buff skin in firing. The bottle was wheel-turned in sections that were

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

167

luted together after drying; following assembly, the bottle was dipped in dark glaze, dried, and then fired (right side up). Once the bottle had cooled following removal from the kiln, the silver decoration was applied—perhaps with heavy foil—and the bottle was fired again, at a low temperature, to fuse the silver to the glaze surface. Upon completion, an ink inscription reading Zhang Hong hua [Painted by Zhang Hong] was written on the unglazed base with a brush. Although it shares the same shape as the previous bottle with bird-in-flight decor (no. §2), this extraordinary changjing ping bottle embraces a technique of decoration otherwise virtually unknown among Cizhou-type wares: overglaze silver. The original silver band around the mouth establishes the bottle’s aesthetic link to the Ding tradition (see no. 14), while the silver designs on the belly reveal influence from the overglaze-gold designs on russet- and black-glazed Ding ware (see no. 15). Gold and silver bands were affixed to ceramic vessels as early as the

168

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Warring States period; so too was metallic foil used to decorate many of those same vessels, as evinced by a gray earthenware covered hu jar in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco that has been dated to the fifth to third century B.c.’ Although their numbers were probably never large, many more ceramics from Warring States times onward must have been decorated with overglaze gold and silver than the few extant pieces might suggest. Long-tailed birds had already entered the repertory of Chinese art in the Bronze Age, often appearing as secondary motifs on ritual bronze vessels of the Shang dynasty” and as principal motifs on those of

the Early Western Zhou.’ Such birds grace open-

work jade plaques crafted in the Tang dynasty* and celadon-glazed Yue wares made in the tenth century.> The resurgence of interest in antiquity that developed in Northern Song ensured the motif renewed popularity in both bronzes° and ceramics during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. Sometimes transformed into phoenixes, long-tailed

birds appeared on various Cizhou-type wares in the north under the Jin (see nos. §2—54) and on Jizhou wares in the south under the Southern Song (see nos.

revealing the stoneware body below. The sgraffiato and cut-glaze techniques are closely related; the main difference is that in the more elaborate cut-glaze technique (see cat. nos. 66-75), the glaze is shaved from the background areas after the principal elements of the design have been incised.

95-97 and 103). Birds related to those on the Ells-

small-mouthed, ovoid bottle in the Saint Louis Art

Museum.’ Apart from its use of overglaze silver, this bottle is unusual in the context of Song and Jin dark-glazed wares in presenting its decoration in horizontal registers. In all probability, it was the horizontally registered decorative schemes on Song and Jin bronzes— which were themselves adopted from the similarly organized ornament on Bronze Age vessels—that inspired the horizontal registration on this bottle.* Related vessels with decoration in overglaze silver are virtually unknown. With its long neck and rounded body, the shape places this bottle firmly in the Jin period. The horizontal registration and the use of double-bowstring lines as borders find parallels in standard, slip-painted Cizhou wares from the thirteenth century, as do the scrolling peonies, longtailed birds, and stylized flower heads.” Tantalizing as it is, the brush-written inscription on the base offers no clue to the dating, place of manufacture, or provenance of this bottle, as historical records make no

e

mention of Zhang Hong.

Unpublished; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco acces-

1)

sion number B60 P1830. See Max Loehr, Ritual Vessels of Bronze Age China, exh. cat., Asia House Gallery, The Asia Society (New York, 1968), pp. 80-81, no. 32; 96-99, nos. 40-41; Dawn Ho

Delbanco, Art from Ritual: Ancient Chinese Bronze Vessels from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (Cambridge, $4-$5, no. I$; 66-67, no. 2T.

1983), pp.

3 See Loehr, Ritual Vessels of Bronze Age China, pp. 114-21,

uo

nos. 49-52; Delbanco, Art from Ritual, pp. 88-89, no. 32; 92-93, no. 34; 96-97, no. 36; IOO—IOI, no. 38. See René-Yvon Lefebvre d’Argencé, ed., Treasures from

the Shanghai Museum: 6,000 Years of Chinese Art, exh. cat.,

LA

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (San Francisco, 1983), pp. 44, color pl. 20; 147, 158, no. 63. See Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 78, no. 72A; Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, Imperial

Taste: Chinese Ceramics from the Percival David Foundation,

p. 22-23, no. 3; Mino and Tsiang, Ice and Green Clouds,

~“

Xn

pp.

123-29,

See Mowry, no. 6.

no..47:

China’s Renaissance in Bronze, pp. 40-43,

Unpublished; Saint Louis Art Museum accession number 245.19. In the sgraffiato technique of decoration, the linear designs are incised through the glaze before firing,

CO

worth Collection bottle appear in the horizontally registered, sgraffiato decoration on a dark-glazed,

In fact, it was very probably the decoration on the antique bronzes—through the medium of Song, Jin, and Yuan bronzes—that indirectly inspired the horizontal registration of the painted decoration on fourteenthcentury blue-and-white porcelains. See Mowry, China’s Renaissance in Bronze, pp. 31-43, nos. 4-6.

g See Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China, pp. 172-73, no. 74 and fig. 196.

58 DEEP AND

BOWL WITH

VERTICAL

WITH THREE RUSSET

STRAIGHT REGISTERS

SIDES OF

STRIPES

Yuan dynasty, 14th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration painted in overglaze iron oxide, the lower portion of the exterior coated with medium brown glaze Probably from the Guantai kilns, Ci county, Hebei province FH. 6:7 ‘cm Dia,

20.7 cin

DavidJ. Menke, M.D.

Of broad U-shaped section, this deep wan bowl has a wide circular foot and walls that rise almost vertically. The footring has an angled bottom and relatively thick walls that flare lightly; the slightly convex base corresponds to the clearly defined depression that marks the interior floor. Appearing black, a dark brown glaze coats the bowl’s interior and the upper portion of its exterior; three registers of vertical russet stripes embellish the interior. A band of medium brown glaze covers the lower portion of the exterior, falling short of the foot on one side but coating the foot’s exterior on the other side. The inside wall and bottom of the footring remain unglazed, as do the base and a section around the bowl’s middle where the dark and medium brown glazes do not meet. The bowl was wheel-turned, after which the band

of medium brown glaze was applied to the exterior; after drying, the bowl was dipped in the dark glaze and then the stripes were touched on in iron oxide, probably with a fingertip. The bowl was fired right side up. Almost unknown in the repertory of Song ceramics, deep bowls with straight sides rose to

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

169

prominence in the fourteenth century, during the Yuan dynasty, when they became a staple of the kilns

Related bowls appear in a number of collections, including one each in the Royal Ontario Museum,

from Jingdezhen were decorated with scrolling floral designs in underglaze cobalt blue or copper red. The combination of black glaze and light gray stoneware body signals a northern, Cizhou-type kiln as the present bowl’s place of manufacture, however. In fact, virtually identical bowls—with steeply raked walls and black glaze adorned with two or three registers of vertical markings—have been excavated from the Guantai kiln site, a Cizhou-type kiln complex in Ci county, Hebei province. Bowls of this type invariably come from the uppermost stratum at the Guantai site, indicating an early- to midfourteenth-century date of creation.’ Related bowls have been recovered from other Yuan-dynasty sites. This bow] reflects the persistence into the Yuan of black-glazed vessels with painted decoration. It reveals, too, that the same tendency toward simplification that saw slip-washed glazes (see no. $1) replace mottled ones was also at work in the painted wares, substituting an abstract pattern of stripes for the stylized birds and flowers of an earlier generation (see nos. §2—56).? Future research may reveal that such simple decorative schemes were less the result of aesthetic choice than of economic necessity. As Jingdezhen began its relentless rise to preeminence in the fourteenth century, kilns had to compete fiercely for market share; as each tried to produce quality goods at the lowest possible cost, the labor-intensive practices that had been employed in Song and Jin—and that gave pots of those eras their characteristic sophistication—typically fell victim to new practices that promoted rapid production.

London;

170

~Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Toronto,* and the Victoria and Albert Museum, two

in the Newark

Museum:°

and one

each in the Shinkeido and Dr. Robert Barron collections. Mostly unpublished, the bowls not only boast similar shapes, glazes, and decorative markings, but

show the same style of footring and medium brown glaze around the midsection. PROVENANCE: John and Betty Menke

lw

i)

1 See Beijing daxue kaoguxi and Hebei sheng wenwu yanjiusuo, “Hebei sheng Ci xian Guantai Cizhou yao yizhi fajue jianbao,” p. 16, fig. 36, no. § and fig. 37. See Tang Hansan, Li Fuchen, and Zhang Songbo, “Nei Meng Chifeng Dayingzi Yuandai ciqi jiaozang” [A Cache of Yuan-Dynasty Ceramics from Dayingzi, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia], Wenwu 5 (1984): 90, fig. 3; Chaoyang shi bowuguan [Chaoyang Municipal Museum], “Chaoyang shi faxian Yuandai jiaozang ciqi’” [A Cache of Yuan-Dynasty Ceramics Discovered in Chaoyang, Liaoning province], Wenwu 1 (1986): 93, fig. 6. Although the vast majority of dark-glazed vessels with painted decoration are bottles (see cat. nos. 52-56), dark-

Unpublished; Royal Ontario Museum, sion number 914.7.46.

Toronto, acces-

WN

glazed bowls painted with stylized floral designs have also been archaeologically recovered in China; Li, ““Wenbo jianxun: Liulin xian chutu heiyou tiexiuhua changjing ping,” p. 40.

See Gray,° Sungis Porcelain and Stoneware,

p. 121,

ON

at Jingdezhen; fashioned in porcelain, such bowls

Unpublished; Newark Museum accession numbers C41.890A and B.

pl. 97.

Although this jar 1s traditionally said to have come

a7 Ovoip Two

from Qinghe xian, Hebei province,* that attribution

Wi1bDE-MOUTHED JAR WITH Loop

HANDLES

AND

DIAGONAL

RIBS

Northern Song period, probably second half 11th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze over carved ribs and appliqué handles H. 18.4 cm; Diam. 21.9 cm Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr.

[113]

This wide-mouthed, ovoid guan jar rests on a small circular foot, its flaring walls rising to the shoulder, where they turn inward to form the short, vertical neck with its rolled lip. Two small loop handles appear on the shoulder, one on either side of the neck. A narrow horizontal ledge at the bottom of the container encircles the top of the foot. Vertical on the exterior, the thick footring is angled on the interior; the bottom of the foot is flat, as is the shallow base.

Diagonally set ribs embellish the jar’s exterior, extending from the base of the neck to the ledge at the bottom of the tapering container. A dark brown glaze covers the pot inside and out, sporting some silvery oil spots on the interior. The unglazed foot and base fired buff. As indicated by spiral potting

seems increasingly unlikely, since the ribs on vessels recovered from that site are usually slip-trailed rather than carved, and they are typically oriented vertically rather than diagonally.° This jar’s nearest relative is a compressed globular guan jar that was recovered in 1988 from a late-eleventh-century tomb in Wangjiang county, Anhui province.° Although it lacks the Falk Collection jar’s distinctive foot and loop handles, the excavated jar also has diagonally cut ribs and a dark brown glaze. The stiking visual similarity suggests that the Falk Collection jar dates to the second half of the eleventh century.’ PUBLISHED: Smith College Museum, ed., Neolithic to Ming, exh. cat., Smith College Museum of Art (Northampton, Mass., 1952), no. 27; Trubner, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period through Ch’ien Lung, p. 95, no. 249; The Arts

Council of Great Britain and The Oriental Ceramic Society, The Ceramic Art of China, exh. cat., Oriental Ceramic Society (London,

1 See Kelley, Chinese Gold and Silver in American Collections, pp. 48-49, $3, nos. 14-15, 19; Gyllensvard, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, pp. 174-79, nos.

I1§—16; 182-83, no. 118; Zhenjiang shi bowuguan and Shaanxi sheng bowuguan, Tangdai jinyingi, pp. 168, nos.

marks on the interior, the jar was wheel-thrown,

the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, vessels embel-

lished with ribs had become an important category of Cizhou-type dark-glazed vessels. Like the others in the small group from which it comes, this jar is unusual on two counts. First, its ribs are diagonally set; those on the majority of ribbed vessels are vertically oriented (see nos. 60-64). Sec-

13-14; 182, nos. 182-85, 194-098.

ta

2 See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Tangdai Huangpu yaozhi, vol. 2, pl. 47, fig. 4; Du Baoren, ““Yaozhouyao di yaolu he shaocheng jishu” [Firing Chambers and Firing Techniques at the Yaozhou Kilns], Wenwu 3 (1987): n.p., pl. 8, fig. 6.

Fostat, near Cairo, in Egypt; Princeton Art Museum accession number y1966-3; in Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, p. 157, pl. 128; Yutaka Mino, Ceramics in the

Liao Dynasty North and South of the Great Wall, exh. cat., China House Gallery, China Institute in America (New

York, 1973), p. 63, no. 37.

4 The Arts Council of Great Britain and The Oriental Ceramic Society, The Ceramic Art of China, p. 82, no. 90.

Like was ince Nils

Julu xian (see discussion, cat. no. 35), Qinghe xian not a kiln site, but a residential site in Hebei provthat was destroyed by floods in 1107 and 1108. See Palmgren, Walter Steger, and Nils Sundius, Sung

Sherds (Stockholm, Géteborg, and Uppsala, 1963), ed. Bo Gyllensvard, pp. 268—69, sherd nos. 2:49 and 7:123.

ond, the ribs on this jar were carved; those on most

» See Wangjiang xian wenwu

a

ribbed vessels, by contrast, were trailed onto the surface of the assembled pot in white slip before the application of the glaze. The small ledge at the bottom of the container, just above the footring, doubtless represents the extra thickness of wall necessary to allow carving of the ribs.

See the tenth-century, white-ware bottle in the Prince-

ton Art Museum, Princeton, N.J., that was found at

A

after which the diagonal ribs were carved into the moist clay. Once the jar had dried it was dipped into the glaze slurry; it was fired, standing right side up, following another period of drying. Taking inspiration from the indented ribs on Tang silver,’ potters at the Huangpu kiln at Tongchuan, Shaanxi province, began to segment the interiors of bowls and other open-form vessels with ribs as early as the eighth century, typically employing the ribs in association with notched rims.* Potters at various kilns began to decorate the exteriors of their bottles and vases with ribs as early as the tenth century.’ By

1971), p. 82, no. 90 and n.p., pl. 63.

guanlisuo [Wangjiang

County Antiquities Preservation Bureau], “Anhui Wangjiang xian Qinglongzui Bei Song mu” [A Northern Song Tomb at Qinglongzui, Wangjiang County, Anhui Province], Kaogu 4 (1991): 380, fig. 1, no. 2 and n.p., pl. 8, no.

3.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

171

It should be noted that even though the two jars share the same aesthetic, the excavation report identifies the

1

2

me

J

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Anhui jar as earthenware (fao) rather than stoneware (ct); ibid., p. 380.

6O LONG-NECKED, RECEPTACLE AND

WIDE-MOUTHED

WITH

VERTICAL

FOLIATE

ZHADOU

RIM

RIBS

Northern Song period, 11th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze over trailed white-slip ribs HH. 627 cm: Diam.

11.8 cm

Dr. Robert Barron

This unusually shaped vessel comprises a compressed bo bowl with lightly incurving lip surmounted by a long cylindrical neck with foliated rim. The walls of the lower portion expand horizontally from the wide, circular foot, then rise vertically to shape the bowl, their bulging profile resembling a set of parentheses. An indented ring distinguishes the bowl from the cylindrical neck, which rises vertically to the lip with its six alternating vertical and flaring foliations. The bottom of the thick, straight-walled footring is flat, as is the shallow base. Eight pairs of evenly spaced, vertical, white ribs encircle the exterior of the bowl, while six single, vertical, white ribs appear on the interior of the neck, one descending down the center of each vertical foliation. Appearing black, a dark brown glaze covers the vessel inside and out, excepting the interior floor and the foot and base. The neck and bowl were turned separately on the potter’s wheel, after which the foliations were created by pressing a finger against the moist clay; once the pieces had dried and been assembled, the ribs were trailed in white slip with an extruder. After the ribs had dried, the piece was immersed in the glaze slurry, after which the floor was wiped. Following another period of drying, the piece was fired, standing right side up. The unglazed floor suggests that a small piece may have been fired inside. Vessels of this shape are variously termed wan, pen [low, wide bowl, or basin], zhadou [waste receptacle], gu, and zun in Chinese, the last two terms both referring to vases in the shape of archaic bronze wine vessels; the differing names reflect the uncertainty about the vessel’s function. Those who term the vessel a wan believe it to have been a drinking bowl, while those who call it a zhadou assume it was a waste receptacle into which the dregs of wine or tea could be discarded before refilling the cup. Authors who use the term pen ascribe no specific function to the vessel, while those who call it a gu or zun use the terms to describe the shape rather than to assign function, though they usually go on to state that such vessels

60

were used as cups or vases, depending on the size. A few authors even call the vessel a tuoyu or tuohu, implying that it was a cuspidor, or spittoon. Until hard evidence comes to light, agreement on function will remain elusive; most specialists see the vessel as a waste bowl, however, and thus favor the term zha-

dou. They further feel that, as descriptions of shape, the term zhadou should be applied to vessels with a compressed globular body, wide neck, and flaring mouth, while the terms tuoyu and tuohu should be reserved for vessels with a globular body, constricted neck, and trumpet mouth (see no. 7)—regardless of function. The term zun is appropriately used by some authors to suggest the zhadou’s antique associations. As noted below, the vessel originated as a tall bowl, but as it assumed its mature form with low-set, globular body and tall, flaring neck, its general similarity to bronze zun wine vessels made during the Shang and Early Western Zhou periods could not have escaped notice.’ The interest in antiquity that permeated the Northern Song must have linked the zhadou to the ancient wine offering vessel, giving the zhadou an overlay of history, and thus imbuing it with the appeal of the antique. Low-necked zhadou vessels of this type were apparently first made at the Huangpu kiln at

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

173

Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm—has been attributed (perhaps mistakenly) to the Yue kilns; see Watson, Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 134, fig. 110. LA

Tongchuan, in Shaanxi province, in the mid-ninth century. Essentially dark-glazed, circular bowls with a wide, flaring lip, the earliest examples have a notched rim with short interior ribs that descend from the

notches*. With foliated lip and short but distinct,

vertical neck, the immediate ancestors of the present vessel had appeared among the dark-glazed wares produced at the Huangpu kiln by the late ninth century.’ Increasingly popular in the tenth, eleventh, and early twelfth centuries, zhadou vessels were made in celadon ware in the Tongchuan area by the succeeding Yaozhou kilns. Though they exhibit the same general form as dark-glazed examples, celadonglazed zhadou vessels from the Yaozhou kilns often have carved floral decoration on the bowl and a carved pattern of rising leaves on the neck. Tenthand eleventh-century examples are stout, with a wide foot, a wide, shallow bowl, and a short neck

with lightly foliated rim;* twelfth-century pieces, by contrast, have a

tall, narrow foot, a deep bowl, and a

tall neck with mannered foliations.*> The interior ribs on ninth-century zhadou vessels descend from the notches between foliations; those on tenth-,

eleventh-, and twelfth-century examples descend from the vertical foliations. The wide footring and shallow bowl suggest a date of manufacture in the eleventh century for this zhadou vessel, as do the simple foliations around the rim and the limited number of white ribs on the exterior. The similarity of this vessel to the celadonglazed zhadou vessels discussed above tempts an attribution to the Yaozhou kilns, but the lack of

=

reference to dark-glazed examples in the archaeological reports prompts caution. An attribution to a Cizhou-type kiln is thus proposed, with the understanding that new evidence may one day allow assignment to the Yaozhou kilns. See Loehr, Ritual Vessels of Bronze Age China, pp. 74-77, nos. 29-30; 118-21, nos. §2—53; Delbanco, Art from Rit-

ual: Ancient Chinese Bronze Vessels from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, pp. 26-27, no. 1; 42-49, nos. 9-12; 90-93,

i)

nos. 33-34.

See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Tangdai Huangpu yaozhi, vol. 2, pl. 47, fig. 4; Du Baoren, “Yaozhouyao di yaolu he shaocheng jishu” [Firing Chambers and Firing Techniques at the Yaozhou Kilns], Wenwu pl. 8, fig. 6.

3 (1987): n.p.,

3 See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Tangdai Huangpu yaozhi, vol. 1, p. 515, fig. 284c, bottom register. 4 See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan Yaozhouyao, p. 23, fig. 14, no. 1; Shaanxi sheng bowuguan, Yaoci tulu, n.p., pt. 2, nos. 1-2. A related tenth-century vessel—from the collection of the late King Gustav VI Adolph of Sweden and now in the

174

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

See Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 82, no. 76; Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Col-

lection, vol. 1, p. 230-31, no. 412; Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the Kwan io. “1,

Collection, pp. 178-79,

61 LarGE

WIDE-MOUTHED

WITH

VERTICAL

Two

HANDLES

RIBS

JAR

AND

SIMULATING

LEAVES

Northern Song to Jin period, 12th century

Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stone-

ware with dark brown glaze over trailed white-slip ribs and appliqué handles, the lower portion dressed with medium brown glaze H. 24.4 cm; Diam.

24.4 cm

Mr. and Mrs. Janos Szekeres

This large, wide-mouthed, spherical guan jar stands

on a short, circular foot; its walls expand horizontally

from the foot, then rise vertically to shape the container, their bulging profile resembling a set of parentheses. Tapering inward as it ascends from the narrow shoulder, a collarlike neck with rolled lip encircles the wide mouth. Two tapered strap handles, diametrically opposed, arc between neck and shoulder, each handle vertically striated to resemble a pointed, veined leaf. The foot’s thick walls flare lightly but its bottom is flat, as is the base. A lustrous dark brown

glaze that appears black where thick covers the interior of the jar’s neck and most of the vessel’s exterior, stopping about an inch short of the foot, where it terminates in a rhythmically undulating edge. Their lower ends completely concealed by the dark glaze, fifty vertical, white ribs emblazon the exterior of the jar; disposed twenty-six on one side and twenty-four on the other, the ribs descend from the base of the

neck to a point roughly two inches above the foot. A thin, caramel-colored glaze covers the jar’s interior as well as the lower portion of its exterior, leaving only the base and the footring’s interior and bottom unglazed (though an accidental splash of caramel glaze appears on the base). The jar was wheel-turned, as indicated by circular potting marks inside, after which the molded handles were set 1n place and the ribs trailed on the surface in white slip. The tops of those ribs below the handles actually overlap the bottoms of the handles, indicating that the ribs were added after the handles had been luted into place.

| i

q

s] 4

ane

;

a

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

175

Once all parts had dried, the potter applied the glaze, probably by dipping. The caramel-colored glaze is likely no more than a thin coating of the dark brown glaze, suggesting that the jar was dipped twice: first into a diluted slurry that resulted in the caramel glaze and then into the principal slurry that produced the dark brown glaze. The jar was fired right side up. Chinese sources refer to such jars as guan or

shuang’er guan, the latter term meaning “doubleeared jar,” a clear reference to the twin handles. Alternatively, some sources term such vessels gualeng guan [melon-ridged jars], a nod to the jar’s resemblance to a plump, segmented melon. The same sources call the decoration baixianwen or tuxianwen,

the names meaning, respectively, “white-lined” and “relief, bowstring-lined,” which are the equivalent of the English “white-ribbed” or “‘relief-nbbed.” The function of such jars remains unknown. The ribs are not rolled, appliqué strips of clay, as they might seem; rather, they are “trailings” of white slip —probably the same white kaolinic slip used on standard Cizhou ware—that were extruded onto the surface of the vessel with something akin to a modern pastry bag or cake decorator. The whiteness of the slip contrasts with the light gray of the body clay in those vessels whose ribs project below the lower glaze edge and are thus exposed.’ Such vessels also reveal that the ribs are slightly thicker at the top— due to the greater pressure applied to the extruder at the beginning of a new rib—and that they are triangular in section. The ribs taper to a point at the lower end, the result of reduced pressure on the extruder, which indicates that they were applied from the top down. These latter characteristics are discernible to the touch in vessels whose ribs are completely glazed, such as the present jar. Applied in imitation of the relief ribs on Tang lacquer and silver, white ribs were first used on ceramics during the Tang dynasty, mainly to segment the interiors of bowls and other open-form vessels (see discussions nos. 23 and 59-60). They were applied sparingly to the exteriors of vessels as decoration in the tenth* and eleventh centuries (no. 60), and by the twelfth they had emerged as an important category of decoration in their own right. Typically used with dark glazes, such ribs both enliven and emphasize the form of the vessels they ornament. In most cases they are evenly spaced, creating the effect of a stately procession; in other cases, however, groups of ribs alternate with undecorated surfaces, establishing geometric patterns (nos. 60 and 64). In terms of lasting influence, the vertical ribs on Northern Song and Jin dark-glazed vessels may well have inspired those on the so-called hundred-rib jars that were made at the Longquan kilns during the Yuan dynasty.°

176

~=Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Although it is usually assumed—and probably rightly so—that potters invented ribbed decoration on their own, it 1s also possible that ancient ritual bronze vessels with vertical nbbing, and especially ritual gui food-serving vessels from the Early Western Zhou period, may have influenced the development of such ornament.* With antiquarian interests at a high in Northern Song and Jin, and with collectors of the day vying to acquire the finest ancient bronzes and jades, the influence of antiquity through works of art collected is always possible. A distinct subcategory of guan jars, wide-mouthed jars with collared necks, appeared during the Northern Song period, as evinced by the 1955 excavation

of a dark-glazed but undecorated example from a Northern Song tomb at Zhaolingpu zhen, Shiyia-

zhuang, in Hebei province.> White-ribbed vessels

have been recovered at Qinghe xian, in Hebei province,° a residential site apparently destroyed by floods in 1107-8, indicating that the type was well established by the beginning of the twelfth century; mounting evidence suggests that the majority of white-ribbed vessels were produced during the Jin dynasty, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however. With its dark glaze approaching the foot, and with its interior and the lower portion of its exterior covered by a thin caramel glaze, this jar qualifies for an attribution to the twelfth century. Dark-glazed stoneware vessels with ribbed decoration were made at numerous kilns in north China during the late Northern Song and Jin periods. In fact, archaeologists have recovered sherds and intact vessels at kiln sites in Zibo, Shandong province;’ at Guantai,® Ci county, and at Cizhou,’ both in Hebei

province; and at numerous kiln sites in Henan province, including, among others, Haobiyji, Tangyin county;'° Duandian, Lushan county;'* Bacun, Yu county;'* and Qinglong, Baofeng county.'? Widemouthed jars with white ribs have also been recovered from tombs and other non-kiln sites."* A large ribbed jar in a private collection in St. Louis has the family name Zhang stamped into the clay of its han-

dles’ outer faces in thread-relief characters.'> Al-

though they include only a single character, the marks probably link the jar to those standard, Cizhou, slip-painted pillows with a stamped mark—a trademark, for all intents and purposes—that usually reads Zhangjia zao [Made by the Zhang Family].*° Dated to the Jin dynasty, pillows with the threecharacter Zhangjia zao marks are often associated with the kilns at Dongaikou, Ci county, Hebei province. '’ Despite the number of wide-mouthed, ribbed jars recovered in controlled excavations, the similarity of jars produced at different sites hinders the attribution

of pieces to specific kilns. At this point the archaeological evidence allows little more than the general grouping of pieces by region of manufacture. Chinese archaeologists have concluded, for example, that the ribs on vessels made in Shandong province are white but relatively coarse, while those on vessels

made in Hebei and Henan provinces are fine but yellow; they further note that the interiors of jars made in Hebei and Henan are often only partially glazed—or completely unglazed—while the interiors of those from Shandong are usually fully glazed, sometimes with a circle wiped free on the floor so that a small pot could be fired inside."® To those general observations, we might add eight additional points of distinction. First, ribbed jars from Shandong province tend to have a short vertical neck encircling the mouth (see no. 64), while those from Hebei and Henan, like the present example from the Szekeres Collection, usually have a tall, collarlike

neck that often constricts lightly at midsection or tapers gently as it rises. Second, jars from Hebei and Henan usually have a rolled lip, as this example does, but those from Shandong usually have a tapered or straight-cut lip. Third, the handles on jars from Hebei and Henan are typically pointed and are usually striated to resemble veined leaves. The handles on jars from Shandong, by contrast, are loop handles and thus characteristically of even width; they comprise either a strand of clay looped back on itself (see no. 64) or a slab of clay molded—or scored longitudinally with two parallel lines—to resemble three joined filaments. The scored and molded handles on Shandong jars usually have an oval nub at the lower end that was flattened with a thumb when the moist clay was pressed into place on the jar’s shoulder. Fourth, although the ribs on jars from Shandong,

Hebei, and Henan are all trailed in similar white slip,

their outward appearances are quite distinctive. The ribs on jars from Shandong appear very white, both because the glaze that covers them is more transparent than that on jars from Hebei and Henan, and because they rise higher in relief and thus shed much of their glaze in firing; through their thick coating of dark brown glaze, the low ribs on the Hebei and Henan jars appear yellow. Fifth, although they may be grouped to form geometric patterns, the ribs on jars from Hebei and Henan provinces always begin at the base of the neck and descend to a point an inch or two above the foot, so that they are all of approximately the same length."? The ribs on jars from Shandong may be grouped to form patterns, as well (see no. 64); however, the ribs may begin at different points around the top—some higher, some lower— thus creating more complex designs than those on Hebei and Henan jars.*° Sixth, even though their in-

teriors are usually fully glazed, the lower exterior portions of jars from Shandong tend to remain unglazed; jars from Hebei and Henan may also have unglazed lower portions, but many rely on a thin coat of caramel glaze to finish the jar’s interior and its lower exterior, as evidenced by the present example. Seventh, the bottoms of the footrings on jars from Shandong tend to be obliquely cut (no. 64), while those on jars from Hebei and Henan tend to be straight-cut so that they are flat. Eighth and last, the ribs on jars made in Hebei more frequently project below the lower glaze edge than do those on jars made in Henan and Shandong. Although an attribution to a specific kiln cannot be made at this time, it should be mentioned that the

present jar is closely akin to pieces recovered from the kiln sites at Haobiji, Tangyin county, in Henan province.~' In addition, the cut of its footring and its use of both caramel and dark brown glazes relate this jar to the dark-glazed guan jar with russet splashes 1n this exhibition (no. 40). Closely related jars are in the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection** as well as in the collections of Dr. Robert Barron,*? Captain Dugald Malcolm,** The Art Institute of Chicago,

the Idemitsu

Museum, Tokyo,*° the Chang Foundation, Taipei,”7 the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,”* and the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.*? Though almost certainly made at other kilns, related mbbed jars are in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco*® and in a private collection in Saint Louis.?’ Measuring approximately seven inches in height, small wide-mouthed, white-ribbed jars also exist, such as the one in the Meiyintang Collection** and the virtually identical but unpublished one in the Mr. and Mrs. Janos Szekeres Collection; at least some of the small ribbed jars were made at the Duandian kilns, Lushan county, in Henan province.°? 1 There is a large, posed white ribs J. J. Lally & Co., cat.,J. J. Lally & nip., No. 37.

wide-mouthed guan jar with partially exin a private collection in St. Louis; see Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, exh. Co., Onental Art (New York, 1986),

2 See Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, p. 157, pl. 128; Mino,

Ceramics in the Liao Dynasty, p. 63, no. 37.

3 See Mikami Tsugio, Ryd Kin Gen [Liao Jin Yuan], Sekai toji zenshu [Ceramic Art of the World] series, vol. 13 (loky6, 1981), p. 47,110. 33. 4 See Delbanco, Art from Ritual: Ancient Chinese Bronze

sels from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, pp. 82-83, no. 29; Jessica Rawson,

Ves-

Chinese Bronzes: Art and Ritual, exh.

cat., Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East

Anglia (London,

color pl. 22.

1987), p. 42, fig. 20; p. 78, no. 22; and

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

177

See Shi and Wu, “Wenbo jianxun: Henan Nanle xian chutu hetyou ciqi,” p. 87 and pl. 8, fig. 7; Mino, “Recent Finds of Chinese Song and Yuan Ceramics,” p. 40, fig. 69gb. nA”

See Hebei sheng wenwu guanli wetyuanhui [Hebei Provincial Antiquities Preservation Committee], “Hebei Shyiazhuang shi Zhaolingpu zhen gumu qingli jianbao” [A Brief Report on the Investigation of the Ancient Tombs at Zhaolingpu zhen, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province], Kaogu 7 (1959): 351, fig. 2, no. 10 (left). There is a closely related example in the collection of The Asia

5

See Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Cen-

Society, New York (accession number 1979.130); see Mowry, Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller

turies in Northern China, pp. 116-17, no. 46; 122-23, no. 40:

3rd Collection, p. 62.

CO

—

nN ~—

Zhao Guanglin and Zhang Ning, “Jindai cigi di chubu tansuo” [A Preliminary Study of the Porcelains and Stonewares of the Jin Dynasty], Kaogu 5 (1979): n.p., pl. Fung Ping Shan Museum, Exhibition of Ceramic Finds from

oo \©O

20

2

ziliao 7 (1956): 37; Mainichi shimbunsha and Nihon

Chigoku bunka koryt kydkai, Chiigoku nisennen no bi, n.p., no. 487; Mino, “Recent Finds of Chinese Song and

Nv bo

—_

No tw

See an unpublished Shandong jar in the R. Hatfield See Haobi shi bowuguan [Haobi Municipal Museum], “Henan sheng Haobyi ciyao yizhi 1978 nian fajue jianbao” [A Brief Report on the 1978 Excavations of the Ceramic Kiln Site at Haobiji, Henan Province] in Zhongguo gudai yaozhi diaocha fajue baogao ji [Collected Reports of Investigations and Excavations at Ancient Chinese Kiln Sites], Wenwu bianji wetyuanhui [Wenwu Editorial Committee] (Being, 1984), p. 334, fig. 7, no. 8; Yang, “Tangyin xian Haobi guciyao yizhi,” p. 37; Mino, “Re-

Unpublished. Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 42 (1970): 113 and n.p.,

pl. 53k. 25 26

Unpublished; The Art Institute of Chicago accession number

1964.790.

See Idemitsu byutsukan [Idemitsu Museum], Idemitsu bijutsukan hizo: Chiigoku toji no bi, Kumamoto-ken shutsudo no Chiigoku toji [Treasures of the Idemitsu Museum: The Beauty of Chinese Ceramics, Chinese Ceramics Excavated in Kumamoto Prefecture], exh. cat., Kumamoto Prefectural Museum (Kumamoto, 1980), n.p., no. 45.

See Hughes-Stanton and Kerr, Kiln Sites of Ancient China, pp. 89, no. 419, 157, pl. 419; Fung Ping Shan Museum,

See Chang Foundation, ed., Ten Dynasties of Chinese Ce-

Exhibition of Ceramic Finds from Ancient Kilns in China, pp.

ramics from the Chang Foundation, exh. cat., Taipei Gallery

123-24, no. 419; Mainichi shimbunsha and Nihon Chi-

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

sheng wenwu yanCizhou yao yizhi Wu, “Wenbo jianciqi,” p. 87 and pl.

See Jan Wirgin, “Sung Ceramic Designs,” Bulletin of the

Chigoku bunka koryt kydkai, Chiigoku nisennen no bi,

178

Shandong Zibo taocishi bianxiezu, “Shandong Zibo shi Zichuan qu Cicun guyaozhi shiyue jianbao,” p. 51; Zhao and Zhang, “Jindai ciqi di chubu tansuo,” pp. 464-65; Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol.

Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection

n.p., no. 486.

no. 489.

47-49.

number 6460.

from Ancient Kilns in China, pp. 120, 122, no. 413;

goku bunka korytti kyOkai, Chigoku nisennen no bi, n.p.,

nos.

cent Finds of Chinese Song and Yuan Ceramics,” p. 39,

413; Fung Ping Shan Museum, Exhibition of Ceramic Finds

cient Kiln Site at Yu County, Henan Province], Wenwu 8 (1964): 34, fig. 17; Mainichi shimbunsha and Nihon

138-42,

fig. 67b (right).

Yuan Ceramics,” p. 39, fig. 67b.

See Ye Zhemin, “Henan sheng Yu xian guyaozhi diaocha jiltie’” [A Summary of the Investigation of the An-

545

Ellsworth Private Collection, collection number 6450.

See Yang Baoshun, “Tangyin xian Haobi guciyao yizhi” [An Ancient Kiln Site at Haobi, Tangyin], Wenwu cankao

Mainichi shimbunsha and Nihon Chigoku bunka koryi kyokai, Chiigoku nisennen no bi, n.p., no. 490.

NO.

8, fig. 7; Mino, “Recent Finds of Chinese Song and Yuan Ceramics,” p. 40, fig. 69b.

See Mainichi shimbunsha and Nihon Chiigoku bunka koryti kyOkai, Chiigoku nisennen no bi, n.p. no. 488.

See Li and Li, “Henan Lushan Duandian yao,” p. $7, fig. 7, nos. 3, 6; Hughes-Stanton and Kerr, Kiln Sites of Ancient China, pp. 88, no. 413; 87, color pl. 413; 156, pl.

132-33,

I, Pp. 248, m0. 447.

Ancient Kilns in China, pp. 124, 126, no. 434; Yutaka

I

$1;

See Beying daxue kaoguxi and Hebei jiusuo, “Hebei sheng Ci xian Guantai fajue jianbao,” p. 13, fig. 27; Shi and xun: Henan Nanle xian chutu hetyou

9, no. 3; Hughes-Stanton and Kerr, Kiln Sites of Ancient China, pp. 93, no. 434; 86, color pl. 434; 158, pl. 434;

See Beijing daxue kaoguxi and Hebei sheng wenwu yanjiusuo, “Hebei sheng Ci xian Guantai Cizhou yao yizhi fajue jianbao,” p. 13, fig. 27.

NO.

hetyou ciqi,” p. 87.

Ancient Kiln Site at Cicun, Zichuan qu, Zibo City, Shandong Province], Wenwu 6 (1978): 57, figs. 32-33;

Mino, “Recent Finds of Chinese Song and Yuan Ceramics,” in New Perspectives on the Art of Ceramics in China, ed. George Kuwayama (Los Angeles, 1992), p. 40, fig. 68b.

126-27,

Stamped in relief characters, the family name Ma appears on the outside face of each handle on the nbbed jar recovered from the Jin tomb in Nanle, Henan province. Shi and Wu, “Wenbo jianxun: Henan Nanle xian chutu

See Palmgren, Steger, Sundius, Sung Sherds, pp. 268—69, sherd nos. 2:49 and 7:123.

See Shandong Zibo taocishi bianxiezu [Editorial Committee on the History of Ceramics in Zibo, Shandong], “Shandong Zibo shi Zichuan qu Cicun guyaozhi shijue jianbao” [A Brief Report on the Trial Excavations at the

SeeJ. J. Lally & Co., Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Ti. Pi, te. 37.

(New York, 28

1993), p. 26.

See Taggart, McKenna, and Wilson, Handbook of the

Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 2, sth ed., p. 85, no. 33-7/I1T.

29 See Freer Gallery of Art, The Freer Gallery of Art, vol. 1, China, p. 178, no. 124, and n.p., pl. 124; Mino, “Recent

Finds of Chinese Song and Yuan Ceramics,” p. 39, fig. 67A. 30 Asian Art Museum of San Francisco accession number

BOO P197; see Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 19.

31 See J. J. Lally & Co., Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, fis tthe. Bi 32 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, p. 248, no. 447. 33

See Henan sheng wenwu yanjiusuo and Lushan xian ren-

min wenhuaguan, “Henan Lushan Duandian yao di xin faxian,” p. $1, fig. 8, no. 14.

tall bottle with small mouth, short neck, broad shoulders, and constricted waist. The name is

52 TRUNCATED WITH

dipped twice: first into a diluted slurry that produced the lighter hue, and then into the principal slurry that resulted in the dark brown. In finishing the bottle, the potters beveled the footring’s inner and outer edges so that as the glaze crawled in firing, it formed welts at the bottom rather than dripping onto the saggar. The bottle was fired nght side up. Probably used as serving vessels for wine, widefooted, broad-shouldered bottles of this type are generally called “truncated bottles” or “truncated meiping bottles” in English." Chinese sources term them yuanjian duan meiping, that is, “round-shouldered, short meiping” bottles; the same sources refer to related bottles with crisply defined, steeply canted shoulders as zhejian duan meiping, or ““‘angleshouldered, short meiping”’ bottles. The term meiping (literally, “plum bottle,” or “plum vase’) refers to a

MEIPING

VERTICAL

BOTTLE

RIBS

Northern Song to Jin period, 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze over trailed white-slip ribs, the lowest portion with medium brown glaze H. 26:6:ems Diam.

16:7 cia

The Asia Society, New York, Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection

[1979.143]

This truncated bottle has gently rounded walls that ascend from the broad foot and then curve inward to form the shoulder. A collar crowns the shoulder, dis-

tinguishing it from the short, vertical neck, which culminates in a flaring lip. Of intermediate width, the

footring is flat, as is the shallow, countersunk base.

Thirty-nine evenly spaced, vertical, white ribs embellish the bottle’s exterior; of varying lengths, the ribs descend from the collar’s raised outer edge to a point one to one-and-a-half inches above the foot. Appearing black where thick and seemingly shot with blue, a dark brown glaze covers the exterior of the bottle and the interior of its neck, stopping short of the foot in an irregular edge. A medium brown glaze covers the base and the lower portion of the exterior, except for the bottom of the footring, where the exposed body clay fired light gray. The bottle was wheel-turned in sections that were luted together after drying; once the bottle had been assembled, the ribs were trailed in white slip. After the ribs had dried, glaze was applied to the bottle, probably by dipping. The medium brown glaze on the lower portion 1s likely no more than a thin coating of the dark brown glaze, suggesting that the jar was

anachronistic and misleading, for in Song and Jin times meiping bottles were used as storage vessels (for wine, vinegar, soy sauce, and other liquids) rather than as vases for the display of cut branches of blossoming plum, as the term implies. The term “truncated meiping” is used for bottles of the present type because they resemble the upper half of a full-size meiping bottle. While the larger bottles were generally for storing liquids, the truncated meiping bottles’ smaller size suggests that they were used for serving wine, as does the flaring lip, which would have facilitated the transfer of wine from bottle to ewer or drinking bowl. Although they occasionally occur in Yaozhou* and gingbai> wares, and also in white* and painted> Ding wares, truncated meiping bottles appear mainly in Cizhou® and Cizhou-type wares, including those with russet? and partridge-feather glazes,” as well as those with vertical ribs, such as the present example.

The exact origin of the shape is unclear, though it doubtless evolved alongside the meiping bottle, which is itself a quintessential Song shape.’ The truncated meiping bottle enjoyed only a brief appearance in Chinese ceramic history, its popularity waning after

only a hundred years. Such truncated bottles in standard Cizhou-type ware have been archaeologically recovered from the middle levels of the kilns at Guantai, Ci county, in Hebei province,'° indicating that they were produced there between 1050 and 1150; the excavation results accord with the late

Northern Song to Jin dates that are usually assigned to bottles of this shape made at northern kilns. Sherds of wide-mouthed, nbbed jars have turned up at numerous kiln sites in northern China (see no. 61), but fragments of nbbed bottles seldom occur, so that the assignment of precise dates and kilns of

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

179

Photo: Lynton Gardiner

seums, an almost identical bottle is in the collection

of Robert M. Ferris IV." Recovered in Korea early in the twentieth century, a related Chinese bottle is in the Prince Yi Household Collection in the National Museum

of Korea, Seoul.'* In addition, bottles

of this type relate closely to the rare, ribbed ewers made at roughly the same time, such as the following example from the Denise and Andrew Saul Collection (no. 63).

180

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

PROVENANCE: Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection PUBLISHED: Robert D. Mowry, “A Great Private Asian Art Collection Goes Public,” Asia, vol. 4, no. 1 (May/June 1981): 19; Mowry, Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, p. 66; Mowry, “The Sophistication of Song Dynasty Ceramics,” pp. 395 and 400, color pl. 2;

—

Leidy, Treasures of Asian Art, pp. 151-53, 303, fig. 143.

In a 1950 article, Sherman Lee explored the form and characteristics of such vessels, which he termed “‘trun-

cated bottle vases.”” Sherman E. Lee, “A Northern Sung Shape?,” Far Eastern Ceramic Bulletin 11 (September

1950): 94-99.

1)

manufacture remains elusive. This bottle has the same shape as pieces excavated at Guantai, suggesting that it was made in the late Northern Song or early Jin period. The finishing of the bottle’s lower portion with a lighter glaze, in particular, suggests a date of manufacture in the twelfth century. The yellowish cast imparted to the white ribs by the thick brown glaze suggests that this bottle was likely made in Hebei or Henan province rather than in Shandong, as do the thorough finishing of its base and the coating of its lower exterior with medium brown glaze. The fully coated ribs and the flat-cut footring also point to a kiln in Hebei or Henan as the probable place of manufacture. Now on loan to the Harvard University Art Mu-

See G. St. G. M. Gompertz, Chinese Celadon Wares, 2nd ed. (London and Boston, 1980), color pl. E (opposite p. 128); Lee, “A Northern Sung Shape?,” n.p., pl. 1, fig. 2.

3 See Tokyo kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 115, no. 166.

4 See Tianjin shi yishu bowuguan, Tianjin shi yishu bowuguan cangci, p. 182, no. 25 and pl. 2s. 5 See Freer Gallery of Art, The Freer Gallery of Art, vol. 1,

China, p. 174, no. 93, and pl. 93; Lee, “A Northern Sung

nN

Shape?,” m.p., pl. 1, fig. 7.

See Lee, “A Northern Sung Shape?, “n.p., pl. 1, figs. 1, 3

co

nv

3-6, 8-9, 13-I5.

Seeibid., ple Ty Tig, U2. See Bo Gyllensvard, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities,

\O

Stockholm, Oriental Ceramics: The World’s Great Collections series, vol. 8 (Tokyo, New York, and San Francisco, 1982), n.p., monochrome pl. 159; Lee, “A Northern Sung Shape?,” n.p., pl. 1, figs. 11, 16.

The russet-glazed Ding bottle in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, may be an eleventh-century manifestation of the truncated meiping shape, in which case it may represent descent from the ovoid bottle that was popular in Ding and Cizhou-type wares in the eleventh century; Metropolitan Museum accession number 27.119.16. See Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 90, no. 83.

10 See Beying daxue kaoguxi and Hebei sheng wenwu yanjiusuo, “Hebei sheng Ci xian Guantai Cizhou yao yizhi HH

fajue jianbao,” a

p. 9, fig. 18, nos. 12, 14, 16.

Harvard University Art Museums loan number LTL27.1988; see Robert D. Mowry, “Previews: Chinese Art,” Art and Auction, vol. 7, no. 4 (November 1984): 133,

12 See Lee, “A Northern Sung Shape?,” n.p., pl. 1, fig. Io.

63 LONG-NECKED

EWER

STRAP

AND

HANDLE

WITH VERTICAL

RIBS

Northern Song to Jin period, first half 12th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze over trailed white-slip ribs and appliqué handle H. 24.1 cm; Diam. 12.7 cm (foot); W. 17.8 cm (across handle and spout) Denise and Andrew

Saul

Probably intended for serving warmed wine, this ewer might also have been used for the hot water to prepare whisked tea. Its container resembling a truncated meiping bottle (see no. 62), this ewer has straight, almost vertical walls that turn inward to form the steeply canted shoulder and then ascend to culminate in the long neck. Rusing from the narrow, low-relief collar that is its base, the cylindrical neck has a flat-cut top meant to support a small cover, now lost. A strap handle with delicately indented spine rises from the bend at the shoulder, echoing the straight, vertical lines of the neck and container, then curves downward to connect just above the midpoint of the neck; at its highest, the handle 1s

level with the vessel’s mouth. Opposite the handle, a long, tapering spout arcs outward from the bend at the shoulder, its maximum height approaching that of the neck. Of intermediate width, the footring is flat, as is the shallow, countersunk base. Thirty-three evenly spaced, vertical, white ribs embellish the exterior of the container, descending from the base of the neck to the foot. A dark brown glaze that appears black covers the ewer’s exterior, save the bottom of its footring, as it covers the interior of its long neck;

the exposed body clay at the foot fired a light gray. The ewer was wheel-thrown in sections that were luted together after drying; once the vessel itself had been assembled, the handle and spout were set in place and the ribs trailed in white slip. Following another period of drying, the ewer was glazed, probably by dipping it twice: once into a diluted glaze slurry and then into the principal slurry, after which the foot was wiped free of glaze. The ewer was fired right side up, the glazed mouth rim indicating that its cover was fired separately. As exemplified by this rare ewer, the white ribs on Song and Jin vessels are spaced just evenly enough to create a feeling of rhythmic progression, but just irregularly enough to impart the sense of spontaneity that so readily distinguishes Song and Jin stonewares from the mechanically perfect porcelains of Ming and Qing. Differing from the ribs on most bottles and jars, those on the few known ewers extend to the foot, so that the segmentation of the surface 1s even more pronounced than on other vessels. This ewer and its congeners are akin in style to the truncated bottle in the Rockefeller Collection (no. 62), and are even more closely related to the Chinese, white-nbbed, truncated meiping bottle that was unearthed in Korea early in the twentieth century and that is now in the National Museum of Korea, Seoul.’ That bottle’s white ribs also extend to

the foot, and its squared shoulders resemble those of the ribbed ewers. The Seoul bottle’s proportions and its long neck recall those of the russet-flecked, blackglazed, truncated bottle in the Idemitsu Museum, Tokyo, which sports a brush-written inscription

dated to 111g on its unglazed base.* If the ewers and the various bottles just described

are indeed related, then this handsome ewer must

date to the late eleventh or early twelfth century. In fact, the fully glazed base, the strongly angled shoulder, the level height of handle, mouth rim, and

spout, and the configuration of the handle all find parallels in ewers from other kilns that have been assigned to the late Northern Song period.? Intact ewers of this type are exceptionally rare. An almost identical ewer, with original cover, is in a private collection in Japan,* while closely related ewers,

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

181

cn

a

i

Toji taikei [A Survey of Ceramics]

also with covers, are in the Meiyintang Collection® and the Museum Yamato Bunkakan, Nara, Japan.” =

PROVENANCE:J. Hellner Collection

PUBLISHED: Jan Wirgin, “Sung Ceramic Designs,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 42 (1970): 113 and pl. 54b; Bo Gyllensvard, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, Oriental Ceramics: The World’s Great Collections series, vol. 8 (Tokyo, New York, and San Francisco, 1982), n.p., monochrome pl. 158.

series, vol. 38 (Tokyo,

92, fig. 12.

64 SMALL Two

WIDE-MOUTHED HANDLES

AND

JAR

WITH

VERTICAL

RIBS

See Idemitsu bijutsukan, Sédai no toji, n.p., no. 74;

Jin dynasty, 12th—-13th century Northern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze over trailed white-slip ribs and appliqué handles From the kilns at Podi or Cicun, Zibo, Shandong

hin zuroku, n.p., no. $30; Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush

HL. £1.3 omy Diant.

through Seven Centuries in Northern China, p. 244; Raddell, Dated Chinese Antiquities, 600-1650, p. $7, fig. 28.

Copyright © The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1995, Gift

1 Lee, “A Northern Sung Shape?,” WN

1974), p.

6

Idemitsu byutsukan,

99

n.p., pl. 1, fig. ro.

Chiigoku toji: Idemitsu bijutsukan z0-

province 13.1 cm

of Dr. and Mrs. Sherman

E. Lee

[64.501]

3 See, for example, Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, pp. 234-35, no. 423.

4 See Wirgin, “Sung Ceramic Designs,” p. 113 and pl. $4c. Nn

5 See Krahl, Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, p. 249, no. 449.

See Osaka shiritsu byutsukan [Osaka Municipal Museum], SO Gen no bijutsu [Art of Song and Yuan], exh. cat., Osaka Municipal Museum (Tokyo, 1980), n.p., no. 183; Koyama

182

Fuyjio, Temmoku

|Dark-Glazed Ceramics],

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

This small, nbbed guan jar sits on a broad circular foot. Its rounded walls expand rapidly and then rise almost vertically to the narrow shoulder, where they turn inward to form the short, vertical neck that en-

circles the wide mouth. Two small handles, each formed ofa filament of clay looped back on itself,

arc from shoulder to neck, one on either side. The

footring’s walls are lightly splayed and its bottom is obliquely cut; the shallow base is slightly convex. Appearing bluish black under a gossamer-thin russet skin, a variegated dark brown glaze covers the interior of the neck and most of the exterior, stopping an inch short of the foot, where it terminates in a

straight edge. Eighteen vertical, white ribs encircle

the exterior, their lower ends completely concealed

regularly grouped in a four-two-three arrangement

on the other. A thin, medium brown glaze covers the jar’s interior, except for a wide ring on the floor where a small pot was placed for firing; occupying the center of the floor, a circle of glaze approximately one inch in diameter appears within the unglazed ring. The unglazed areas of the vessel fired a very light gray. The jar was wheel-turned, after which the handles were luted in place and the ribs trailed on the surface in white slip. Once all parts had dried, the potter applied the glaze, probably by dipping. The lighter glaze on the interior 1s likely no more than a thin coating of the dark glaze, suggesting that the jar was dipped twice: first into a diluted slurry and then into the principal slurry that resulted in the dark brown glaze. The jar was fired nght side up. With its thick, white ribs and its glazed interior interrupted by a circle of exposed body clay on the floor, this handsome jar possesses the hallmarks of ribbed jars made at kilns in Zibo, Shandong province’ (see discussion no. 61). Its short, thin-lipped, vertical neck and filamented loop handles support the attribution to the Podi or Cicun kilns, as do its

unglazed lower portion and the footring with its obliquely cut bottom. Wide-mouthed jars from Shandong typically have an even, regular lower glaze edge that appears just below the vertical ribs. In addition, such jars often lack the crisp demarcation between shoulder and neck that forms so integral a part of jars made in Hebei and Henan. Excavations carried out in late 1976 revealed that

production at the Cicun kilns began in the mid-Tang period and continued into the Yuan, indicating that the kilns were active from the ninth to the fourteenth century. The kilns specialized in the manufacture of dark-glazed wares, though they also made some celadon-glazed wares in the Tang and Five Dynasties periods and some white wares in the Northern Song. Coinciding with the Jin and Yuan dynasties, the kilns’ period of greatest achievement

ie

eee

sa wei

Fa = &

Se

Ea Fi Fy ;

ee

ae

by the dark glaze; they descend from the base of the neck to a point just above the glaze’s lower edge. Disposed nine to a side, the ribs are grouped to form patterns that contrast with adjacent, undecorated areas; positioned in threes on one side, they are ir-

saw the production of numerous white-ribbed jars and oil-spot-glazed bowls.* Active mainly in the Jin and Yuan, the kilns at nearby Podi produced a range of Cizhou-type wares, along with white-ribbed jars almost indistinguishable 1n style from those made at Cicun. Since the kilns at Zibo began to make ribbed jars only during the Jin dynasty, this jar must date to the twelfth or thirteenth century. The grouping of the ribs to create patterns accords with the Jin taste for abstract but structured designs; it thus displays a stylistic kinship to those bowls with three or five decorative splashes set against a dark ground (nos. 41, 42, 46-48). Although not identical, the configuration of the footring and base on this jar resembles that on the Harvard and Breece Collection splashed bowls discussed above (nos. 46, 47), suggesting that they

may have been produced at about the same time. A related jar was recovered during the 1976 excavations at Cicun,’ and a fragment of a ribbed jar of almost identical form was retrieved in the 1977 trial

excavations at Podi.* Other related jars are in the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection,’ the George Crofts Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of

Art,° and the Ataka Collection at the Museum Eastern Ceramics, Osaka.’ PROVENANCE:

of Far

Dr. and Mrs. Sherman E. Lee

PUBLISHED: Trubner, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period through Ch’ien Lung, p. 95, no. 250; Trubner, “Tz’uchou and Honan Temmoku,”

pp. 159, 162, fig. 9; The

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed

Ceramics

183

Cleveland Museum of Art, “Year in Review,” exh. cat., in Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 52, no. 9 (November 1965): 144, 154, no. 79; “Art of Asia Recently Ac-

quired by American Museums, 1964,” Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America 19 (1965): 90; Charles Lakofsky, Pottery (Dubuque, 1968), fig. 93; Wirgin, “Sung Ceramic Designs,” p. 113; Sherman E. Lee, The Colors of Ink: Chinese Paintings and Related Ceramics from the Cleveland Museum of Art, exh. cat., Asia House Gallery, The Asia Society (New York,

1974), pp. 123, 132, cat. no. $5; Henry John Anthony Kleinhenz, Pre-Ming Porcelains in the Chinese Ceramic Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ph.D. diss., Case Western Re-

=

serve University, 1977 (Ann Arbor,

1977), pp. 383-86.

Shandong Zibo taocishi bianxiezu, “Shandong Zibo shi Zichuan qu Cicun guyaozhi shyue jianbao,” p. 51; Zhao and Zhang, “Jindai ciqi di chubu tansuo,” pp. 464-65; Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol.

Le

we)

I, p. 248, no. 447.

Shandong Zibo taocishi bianxiezu, “Shandong Zibo shi Zichuan qu Cicun guyaozhi shijue jianbao,” pp. 46—s1. see ibid., p. $7, fie. 94.

4 See Zibo shi bowuguan [Zibo Municipal Museum], “Shandong Zibo Podi yaozhi di diaocha yu shyue” [The

Investigation and Tnal Excavation at the Podi Kiln Site, in Zibo, Shandong] in Zhongguo gudai yaozhi diaocha fajue

baogaoji [Collected Reports of Investigations and Excavations at Ancient Chinese Kiln Sites], Wenwu bianji weiyuanhu |[Wenwu Editorial Committee] (Beying, LA

1984), p. 362, fig. 4, no. $. Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection number 6450.

6 Unpublished; Philadelphia Museum of Art accession number 23-21-227.

7 See Koyama, Temmoku, n.p., no. 68.

wall vertical, its interior wall angled; the lower portion of its exterior face is steeply beveled, so that the foot appears triangular in section on first examination. Slightly depressed, the flat base is crisply difterentiated from the footring. A thick coat of snow white slip covers the interior of the dish and a onehalf-inch band just below the mm on the exterior. Five cusps of dark brown glaze overlap the angled side walls inside and out, creating a flower- or starshaped escutcheon on the interior and a rhythmic series of scallops on the exterior. The glazed cusps appear black on the interior, where they lie over the white slip, but medium brown on the exterior, where they lie directly on the gray stoneware body. Of varied size, calligraphic dots of dark brown glaze in the center of the floor suggest a blossom, while additional dots in the hollows of the cusps suggest leaves. The unslipped, unglazed portions of the exterior assumed a buff skin in firing. The dish was turned on the potter’s wheel and its foot was cut by hand. The white slip was applied by dipping. After the slip had dried, the potter grasped the dish by its

foot and immersed a portion of its side wall, rim first,

into the glaze slurry five successive times; each partial immersion produced one glazed cusp. The decorative glaze flourishes were applied with a brush, possibly freehand, possibly with the aid of a stencil. The dish was fired right side up. Vessels of this shape are occasionally called wan, or bowls, but they are more usually termed pan, which means “shallow bowl,” “dish,” or even “plate.”’ Such

dishes were used as food-serving vessels, probably for dry food or uncut fruit, as liquids would have stained the unglazed white slip.

Gn Dish

wire

STYLIzeD

FroraLt

DErcor

Tang dynasty, late 9th—early 1oth century Huangpu black-glazed ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze decoratively applied over white slip From the Huangpu kiln, Tongchuan, Yaozhou county, Shaanxi province H. 327 cm; Diath.

16.7 citi

The Scheinman Collection

[114]

The walls of this shallow dish extend horizontally from the wide, circular foot and then angle upward to the nm. Visible on the interior, the angle distinguishes the broad, flat floor from the sides of the dish. The low, thick footring descends from the horizontal ledge on the dish’s flat underside, its exterior

184

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Detail, no. 65

Henan province.* Obviously a popular commodity,

the decoratively glazed, Tang-style dish persisted into the Northern Song, when it was made in the tenth and eleventh centuries at a number of Cizhou-type kilns, including those at Guantai> and at Guanbingtai,° both in Ci county, Hebei province. Succeeding the Huangpu kiln at Tongchuan in the Northern Song period, the Yaozhou kilns continued to make dishes of related shape, but covered them with celadon glaze.’ Since dishes produced in the late Tang, Five Dynasties, and Northern Song periods have virtually identical decorative schemes, it 1s the interpretation of the form and the cut of the footring that distinguish dishes of one period from those of the next. As revealed by this fine example, late Tang dishes from Huangpu have sharply angled walls and a welldemarcated floor. In addition, they have a horizontal ledge on the underside and a prominent footring

iH

Steep-walled dishes with flat bottoms, but without footrings, appeared among the white wares made at the Huangpu kiln, Tongchuan, in Shaanxi province, in the mid-eighth century;’ by the second half of the ninth century, potters there were outfitting such dishes with footrings and finishing them with decorative applications of dark glaze.* During the late Tang period, such dishes were imitated not only at the nearby and closely related Yuhua kilns,’ but also at the more distant Duandian kilns in Lushan county,

with relatively thick walls; the lower portion of the footring’s outer wall is often sharply beveled and the broad, flat base is not only well-defined but slightly sunken.* Lacking the horizontal ledge and thick walls of their Tang forebears, related dishes from the Northern Song usually exhibit a more organic form with gently curved walls and flaring lip. In typical Song fashion, they also have thin-walled, vertical footrings and flat bases that are level with the footring’s upper edge.? The very prominent footring on Tang dishes reflects the taste of the day for stable, well-supported vessels; that same taste sustained production of the solid-footed vessels that are so characteristic of the period (nos. 6—I1). While history best remembers the Huangpu kiln for the celadon-glazed Yaozhou wares produced there during the Northern Song and Jin periods, the kiln numbered among the most innovative of the Tang dynasty, producing white and celadon wares as well as tea-dust and black wares (nos. 6 and 7). Not only did the solid foundations laid in the Tang permit the kilns’ rapid rise to national prominence during the Northern Song, but the new techniques of decoration invented by the Huangpu potters continued to be explored and applied by potters for centuries. The use of white slip as a background for the decoration on the present dish and its congeners may have sparked the creation of standard Cizhou ware, for example, as the partially glazed surface of this piece and its Song descendants may have inspired the creation of stonewares with cut-glaze decoration in the Jin and Yuan periods (see nos. 66-75). In addition, the slip-painted decoration that became a feature of white Ding ware in the late Northern Song period, and of standard Cizhou ware in the Jin and Yuan, may trace its origins to the slip- and glazepainted decoration on stoneware vessels made at the Huangpu kiln in the late Tang. Thus, many of the decorative techniques that would become standard in the Song were introduced and explored at the Huangpu kiln in the mid- and late Tang periods. See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Tangdai Huangpu yaozhi, vol. 1, p. 519, fig. 284(G).

2 dee ibid,,'p.. 919, Gp. 170; 579, tie. 284(C). 3 See Tongchuan shi, Xunyi xian wenhuaguan and Shaanxi

sheng wenguanhui [Xunyi County Cultural Institute, Tongchuan City, and Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Institute Committee], “Shaanxi xin faxian langchu guciyao yizhi” [Two Newly Discovered Ancient Kiln Sites in Shaanxi Province],

Wenwu

1 (1980): 64, fig. 3.

4 Henan sheng wenwu yanjiusuo and Lushan xian renmin

wenhuaguan, “Henan Lushan Duandianyao di xin faxian,” pp. 49, fig. 6, nos. 4, 8; $0, fig. '7, no. T3.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

185

s See Beijing daxue kaoguxi and Hebei sheng wenwu yan-

Nn

jiusuo, “Hebei sheng Ci xian Guantai Cizhou yao yizhi fajue jianbao,” p. 5, fig. 7, no. 3. See Qin Dashu, “Hebei sheng Ci xian Guanbingtai guciyao yizhi diaocha” [The Investigation of the Old Kiln Site at Guanbingtai, Ci County, Hebei Province], 4 (1990): 31, fig. 11, nos, 3, 4.

Wenwu

7 See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Shaanxi Tongchuan Oo

faozhouyao, p. 21, fig. 13, no. 16 and pl. 11, no. 7.

See Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Tangdai Huangpu

Oo

yaozhi, vol. 1, p. 319, fig. 170. See note § above.

56 OvoipD AND

BOTTLE

SCROLLING

WITH

EVERTED

FLORAL

LIP

DECOR

Jin to Yuan dynasty, 13th—14th century Cizhou-type cut-glaze ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration cut into the glaze before firing H. 21.9 cm; Diam.

18.6 cm

Robert M. Ferris [V

Probably for wine, this ovoid bottle has rounded walls that rise from the circular foot to the bulging belly, where they begin their climb inward to define the gently curved shoulder; the short neck culminates in an everted, horizontal lip. The thin-walled

footring circumscribes the deeply countersunk, flat base. Appearing black where thick and caramel where thin, a dark brown glaze covers the bottle’s exterior and the interior of its neck; the glaze extends to the foot, but leaves the base and the interior and

bottom of the footring unglazed. Two bands of decoration set between bowstring lines encircle the bottle’s midsection; cut into the glaze before firing, the decorative scheme silhouettes the dark-glazed design elements against the light gray ground of exposed body clay. The slightly wider, upper register sports a floral scroll comprising six floral elements connected by a leafy, S-curved stem; 1n order, the elements are mallow blossom, lotus blossom, sagittarius, lotus

blossom, lotus leaf, and overlapping sagittarius and lotus blossom. Acting as an emphatic border, the narrower, lower register features a bold key-fret pattern. The bottle was wheel-thrown in sections that were luted together after drying; the assembled bottle was dipped lip-first into the glaze slurry, the finger 1mpression and glaze smudges around the foot indicating the points where the potter held the piece. Once the glaze had stabilized but was still moist, potters

186

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

specializing in ceramic decoration incised the bowstring-line borders and the outlines of the floral designs. Immediately thereafter, they shaved the glaze off the “background” areas of the design—those areas outside the incised lines—revealing the body clay; the veins were then incised within the leaves and petals. The bottle was fired nght side up. Bottles of this shape are sometimes termed meiping in Chinese, but they are more typically called xiaokou ping, or small-mouthed bottles. The designation meiping 1s usually reserved for bottles with broad, flat shoulders and constricted waist; the point of greatest diameter usually falls across the shoulders of a meiping bottle, rather than across its belly. Perhaps ultimately inspired by the partially glazed dishes produced at the Huangpu kiln (see no. 65) in the Tang dynasty and at a number of Cizhou-type kilns in the early and mid-Northern Song, vessels with cut-glaze decoration rose to prominence in the Jin period and continued to flourish in the Yuan. Such decoration is termed tihua or kehua in modern Chinese literature, both terms meaning “‘cut decora-

tion.” Both the aesthetics and the techniques of decoration of cut-glazed wares were influenced by standard Cizhou wares with so-called sgraffiato decoration—that is, decoration incised 1n a thick layer of white slip applied over the body before glazing." The immediate models were those standard Cizhou wares with decoration worked in a combination of underglaze black and white slips. In such pieces, the vessel was covered all over with a layer of white slip, after which it was fully coated with a layer of black; the outlines of the decorative scheme were then incised through the black slip, and the black was shaved from the background areas to reveal the underlying layer of white. The technique resulted in a black design on a white ground, which would subsequently be finished with a layer of clear glaze.* First appearing in the late eleventh century, Cizhou wares with decoration worked in black and white slips continued to be made through the twelfth century. Apart from the techniques of incising and shaving, and the aesthetics of black decoration on white ground, two elements of this bottle’s decorative

scheme also link it to those Cizhou vessels with decoration in black and white slips: the sagittarius and the key-fret pattern. A rare feature of Chinese ceramic decoration, the trilobed sagittarius appeared exclusively on standard Cizhou wares’—generally occurring on pieces with black-and-white-slip decoration*—before making its debut on vessels of cut-glaze type. The simplified key-fret pattern seen on this bottle began to appear on Cizhou-type wares in the eleventh century, and probably derived from the leiwen, or squared spiral pattern, that became a

popular border motif in Ding, Yaozhou, and gingbai wares in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries (see discussion no. 19). Used on vessels decorated in

white slip alone, as well as on those decorated in white and black slips, the key-fret motif continued through the Jin and into the Yuan, when it enjoyed its period of greatest popularity.° Although it produced aesthetically pleasing results, the technique of two-slip decoration was laborious, involving two separate applications of slip followed by the removal of portions of the upper, black layer while leaving the white layer below undisturbed; in addition, when the decoration was complete, the vessel still had to be glazed. Simplifying the procedure considerably, the cut-glaze method not only offered a similar visual effect, but also the challenge

of a new technique to develop and exploit, and increased efficiency of production. From the economic

point of view, it can be no coincidence that the cut-

glaze technique came into vogue in late Jin and Yuan times, when increasing competition from the rapidly expanding kilns at Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi province,

demanded that all kilns simplify and streamline their

techniques of production to survive (compare nos. 51 and 58).

As it matured, Northern Song taste had come to favor fully glazed vessels; in the same manner that it had brought a halt to the production of partially glazed vessels—descendants of the Huangpu-type dishes (no. 65)—by the mid-eleventh century, the Song preference for meticulously finished products probably would not have welcomed vessels with cutglaze decoration. As the inheritors of Northern Song taste and customs, the people of Jin continued to favor fully glazed vessels. While they perhaps grudgingly accepted pieces with unglazed lower portions —hence the frequent use in Jin times of slip to conceal exposed body clay—the people of twelfthcentury Jin probably would also have looked askance at pieces with cut-glaze decoration. Acceptance of that technique had to await changes in taste brought about by the new economic reality of the thirteenth century. The full, rounded shape and the pairing of the single band of scrolling floral decoration with the bold key fret relate this bottle to one with cut-glaze

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

187

decoration in the Eumorfopoulos Collection at the British Museum, London;° dated by inscription to 1305, the British Museum bottle points to a thir-

teenth- or early-fourteenth-century date of manufacture for the Ferris Collection bottle.’ Begun in the Jin period under the influence of Song and Jin bronzes, decorative schemes organized into horizontal registers became a staple of Yuan-period ceramics. Vessels with cut-glaze decoration are often attributed to Shanxi province; although such vessels were indeed produced there,* many must have been produced at kilns in other northern provinces as well. Excavations at kiln sites have not yet yielded sherds or intact vessels identical to this bottle, so its place of manufacture remains unknown. Though sporting a different decorative scheme, a cut-glaze bottle recovered at Tianzhen, Shanxi province, has not only the same form as this bottle, but

the same body and glaze colors. It has been attributed

—

to the Jin dynasty.?

See Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Cen-

turies in Northern China, pp. 42-49, nos. 9-12; 86-101,

to

N

nos.

7I—3s.

See ibid., pp. 102-11, nos. 39-43.

A ceramic pillow in the Tianjin Museum 1s one of the rare Cizhou pieces to have a sagittarius carved in white slip only; see Tian Fengling, “Tianjin xin faxian yipi

LA


and sacred texts® of the early Ming period, and it often ornaments the borders of imperial porcelains from the late fourteenth century onward.’ By contrast, the attenuated lotus petals used as borders during the Northern Song and Jin periods are long and narrow, and they lack the bracket-shaped top that is such a prominent feature of the petals on this jar. A closely related jar in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco has four large lotus blossoms set between stylized floral scrolls top and bottom, but it lacks the Marcove Collection jar’s lotus-petal borders.® 1 See René-Yvon Lefebvre d’Argencé, Chinese Ceramics in the Avery Brundage Collection (San Francisco, 1967), pp.

112-13, pl. 518; Tokyo kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 182, no. 257.

2 Such monuments include the Juyong Gate outside Beijing; see Murata Jiro and Fujieda Akira, eds., Kyoydkan (Chii-yung-kuan) [The Juyong Gate], vol. 2 (plates) (Kyoto, 1955), pls. 69-72, 93. 3 Such borders tend to have tall, wide petals on fourteenthcentury pieces, but have short, wide petals on examples from the fifteenth-century; see Medley, The Chinese

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

197

Potter, pp. 173, fig. 127; 179, fig. 131; 183, fig. 134; 185, figs. 136-37; 187, fig. 138; color pl. 5; Percival David Foundation, Imperial Taste, pp. 54, no. 27; 56-67, no. 28

and figs. 27-29.

4 Machida shiritsu kokusai hanga byutsukan [Machida International Print Museum], Chigoku kodai hanga ten: Chugoku hanga 2000 nen ten, dai san bu [Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Woodblock Prints: Third Section of an Exhibition of 2000 Years of Chinese Printing], exh. cat., Machida International Print Museum (Machida, Tokyo, 1988), p. 92, no. 22; Heather Karmay, Early Sino- Tibetan Art (Warminster, England, 1975), pp. 47, nos. 26-28; 50, nos. 29-30. d

5s See Karmay, Early Sino-Tibetan Art, pp. 85-91, nos. $0,

$2-$4, 56, $8, 60, 62-63, 6 See ibid., p. 85, no. 49; Machida shiritsu kokusai hanga

byutsukan, Chiigoku kodai hanga ten, p. 94, no. 2.

7 See Mowry, Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, pp. 70, no. 1979.153; 75-76, nos. 1979.168, 1979.170; Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 155, no. 150; Percival David Foundation, Im-

perial Taste, p. 58, no. 29.

8 Unpublished; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco accession number B63 Pst.

io FLAT-SHOULDERED BOTTLE WITH CARINATED MOUTH AND WITH FORMALIZED PEONY DECOR IN QUATREFOIL PANELS SET

AGAINST

ROLLING

WAVES

Xixia kingdom, 12th—-early 13th century Cizhou-type cut-glaze ware: light gray stoneware with khaki brown glaze, the decoration incised and cut into the glaze before firing From the Ciyaobao kilns, Lingwu county, Ningxia Huizu Autonomous Region H. 34.90-em; Diam.

16,4 cm

The Shinkeido Collection

Only lightly swollen, the relatively straight walls of this tall, slender bottle ascend almost vertically from the small circular foot to the steeply canted shoulder; a short, cylindrical neck with an angled, or carinated, mouth crowns the top. The short, thick footring has a flat bottom and lightly angled interior walls; the

broad, countersunk base is flat. A khaki brown glaze covers the exterior of the bottle, its even, lower edge

stopping an inch short of the foot; the exposed body clay on the underside fired light buff. Two registers of decoration in cut-glaze technique embellish the bottle: a wider, principal band around its midsection and a narrower, subsidiary band around its lower

198

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

ve portion. The principal register boasts three large quatrefoil panels set against a ground of rolling waves, each panel with a formalized stalk of blossoming peony; the overlapping waves each comprise five incised, concentric arcs. An incised pattern of stylized foliage fills the lower register, the leaves regularized as ascending and descending triangles, each with a decorative flourish at its heart. Bowstring lines not only border the decoration top and bottom, but separate the two registers. An unornamented band of dark glaze around the bottle’s lower portion mirrors the unembellished dark glaze on the shoulder, neck,

and lip. This bottle was wheel-thrown in sections that were luted together after drying; once it had

been assembled, the vessel was immersed in the

glaze slurry; smudges on the unglazed lower portion

indicate the points where the potter held the bottle in applying the glaze. When the glaze had stabilized but was still moist, the potter incised the rolling waves, the stylized leaves, and the outlines of the principal design motifs, and then shaved the glaze from the background areas within the quatrefoil panels. The bottle was fired right side up. Used as storage vessels, bottles of this shape are sometimes termed meiping in Chinese, though they are more typically called jingping [longitudinal bottles], a reference to their elongated form. Clearly related to the meiping, and almost certainly descended from it, jingping bottles are distinguished by their narrow, flat shoulders and their subtly bulging profiles; the widest point of such bottles usually occurs around the midsection. The standard meiping

bottle, by contrast, has broad shoulders that consti-

tute its widest point; in addition, the meiping has a constricted waist, and sometimes a lightly flaring foot; all of these combine to impart an S-curve to the profile. The prominent neck and carinated mouth are regular features of the jingping, though not of the standard meiping. In fact, the carinated mouth suggests that the jingping bottles were probably not closed with a ceramic cover; rather, they were prob-

ably stoppered with a wooden dowel wrapped with fabric. Standard meiping bottles, by contrast, were often outfitted with matching bell-shaped covers. The recovery of a similarly shaped and decorated jingping bottle from the Ciyaobao kiln site during excavations conducted there from 1984 though 1986

permits the attribution of this bottle to those kilns." Located near Lingwu, in northern Ningxia Huizu Autonomous Region, the Ciyaobao kilns were active from Xixia times (1032-1227) well into the nineteenth century.~ Although the kilns are documented in Ming and Qing records, their pre-Ming origins had been forgotten until their rediscovery in

1983. The kilns made their finest wares in the twelfth

and early thirteenth centuries, during the mid- and late Xixia period; they continued to produce quality ceramics in the Yuan dynasty, but turned to more mundane wares during the Ming and Qing. Excavations at the Ciyaobao kilns revealed that during Xixia times, people of the Lingwu area were materially and technologically sophisticated, and they maintained close cultural ties with people of the Central Plains. The first ancient kilns to be discovered in Ningxia, the Ciyaobao kilns produced mainly dark-glazed wares, but also some white wares and celadons.? The

similarity in style, aesthetics, and techniques of manufacture of Ciyaobao ceramics to those made in China’s Central Plains reveals the kilns to be a western exponent of the Cizhou system.* During Xixia

times, their output included a variety of dishes,

bowls, cups, ewers, and bottles; their most distinctive

forms, however, were slender jingping bottles and bianhu flasks of compressed circular form (compare

no. 75). Some of the cups echo the form of contem-

poraneous silver cups made in the same area.*> Longnecked bottles, wide-mouthed cylindrical jars, and bowls with elaborately modeled rims became the most common forms produced there in the Yuan dynasty. Russet- and dark brown-glazed ceramics predominate in the Xixia stratum, though a few white wares also occur; the Yuan stratum includes

virtually no white wares, but many brown- and teadust-glazed ones. The lowest portions of Ciyaobao dark-glazed vessels from both Xixia and Yuan times are typically unglazed. Though they produced numerous unornamented vessels, the Ciyaobao kilns are best known today for their stoneware jars and bottles with cut-glaze floral decoration. Those of Xixia date, such as this splendid bottle from the Shinkeido Collection, typically feature their floral designs in geometric panels, the panels usually set against a ground of rolling waves. The flat shoulder is characteristically unembellished; the lower portion of the bottle may be plain, or it may sport stylized foliage or even frolicking animals.° Vessels from the Yuan dynasty with cut-glaze decoration often have two virtually identical bands filled with stylized floral scrolls; because they rely on uniformly thick design elements— eschewing the slender stalks that link the leaves and petals on the present bottle— the floral scrolls on Yuan vessels are not only less easily read, but are heavy in appearance, wholly lacking the energy of this bottle’s sprightly peonies.’ On Ciyaobao vessels with cut-glaze decoration, the peony appears almost to the exclusion of other flowers, save the mallow,® which became increas-

ingly popular in Chinese decorative arts from the twelfth century onwards.’ The rolling waves in the principal decorative register find a precedent in the designs on twelfth-century Yaozhou celadon-glazed bowls,'° which trace their own origins through tenth-century Yue celadon wares to Tang bowls of gold and silver."' By the late twelfth century, water had become an important subject matter of Chinese art in its own right. Southern Song paintings on paper and silk occasionally feature cresting wares as their principal subject matter,'~ and Southern Song ceramics from the Jizhou kilns sometimes carry patterns of rolling waves as their only decoration."? Rolling waves composed of concentric arcs entered the repertory of Jingdezhen blue-and-white porce-

lain in the fourteenth century; in some cases, such

as the pear-shaped bottle in the Nelson-Atkins

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

199

of a Xixia Cache of Antiquities in Yyinhuoluo County, Inner Mongolia], Kaogu 12 (1987): 1092, fig. 1, no. 1 and ple. ~“l

Museum, Kansas City, scrolling peony designs are set against a background of rolling waves, suggesting that cut-glaze wares from Lingwu county may have influenced designs painted on porcelains at Jingdezhen."* The shape and decorative scheme clearly indicate that this bottle was made at the Ciyaobao kilns in the twelfth or early thirteenth century. Related bottles have been recovered from sites in Gansu province’ 5 and Inner Mongolia,"® indicating that the wares enjoyed popularity well beyond the area of manufacture. Kindred bottles are in the Hoyt Collection at

related style but with only one band of decoration, see

Higashiyama Kengo, ed., Daikoga Orudosu hihoten Chiigoku Neika kodai bijutsu no sui: Nichi kokko seijoka nijiishiinen kinen [Hidden Treasures from the Yellow River and the Ordos—Rarities from Ancient Ningxia, China: An Exhibition Commemorating Twenty Years of Normalized Relations between Japan and China], exh.

the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,’” and in the Die-

drich Abbes Collection.'® Their present whereabouts

cat. (Tokyo, co

unknown, other related vessels are illustrated in Chi-

nese publications.*”

and Porcelain, p. 176, pl. 51, lower left illustration; and a

tr

\O

nese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, pp. 232-33, nos. 413-14, 418-20.

Il

”

Compare Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo

Nei Menggu gongzuodui, “Ningxia Lingwu xian Ciyaobao ciyaozhi fajue jianbao,” p. 908, fig. 6, no. 5 and Dong Ju’an, “Wenbo jianxun: Ningxia Shiba faxian moshu Xixia wen yingi” [Cultural and Museum News: The Discovery at Shiba, Ningxia, of a Silver Vessel with an Ink-Written Inscription in Xixia Script], Wenwu 12

(1978): 84, fig. 3; 85, figs. 5-6.

6 See Gao Gu and Wang Zhiping, “Nei Menggu Yyinhuoluo qi faxian Xixia jiaocang wenwu” [The Discovery

200

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Mowry, “Kory6 Celadons,” pp. 31-35. See RobertJ. Maeda, “The ‘Water’ Theme in Chinese Painting,” Artibus Asiae, vol. 33, no. 4 (1971): 247-90.

I

See Jason C. Kuo, ed., Born of Earth and Fire: Chinese Ceramics from the Scheinman Collection, Studies in Chinese Art History and Archaeology series, vol. 1 (College Park, Md., 1992), p. 87, no. 68; Hasebe, So, p. 245, no. 288.

14 I

224-26 and 223.

4 Shi Jinbo, Bai Bin, Wu Fengyun, eds., Xixia wenwu [Xixia Antiquities] (Beijing, 1988), p. 315; Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo Nei Menggu gongzuodui, “Ningxia Lingwu xian Ciyaobao ciyaozhi fajue jianbao,” p- 912.

China’s Renaissance in Bronze, pp. 102-4, no. 19.

See Mowry, Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rocke-

feller 3rd Collection, p. 63 (nos. 1979.133—134); Krahl, Chi-

1 (1986): 87-88.

In 1987, kilns producing closely related wares were discovered at nearby Huiminxiang, also in Lingwu county; Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo Nei Menggu gongzuodui [Inner Mongolian Work Team, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences], “Ningxia Lingwu xian Huiminxiang ciyaozhi diaocha” [The Investigation of a Ceramic Kiln Site at Huiminxiang, Lingwu County, Ningxia], Kaogu 3 (1991):

(accession number 1942.185.391).

For a discussion of the mallow flower in Chinese decorative arts of the Song, Yuan, and Ming periods, see Mowry,

IO

tw

Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo Nei Menggu gongzuodui [Inner Mongolian Work ‘Team, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences], “Ningxia Lingwu xian Ciyaobao ciyaozhi diaocha” [An Investigation of the Ceramic Kiln Site at Ciyaobao, Lingwu County, Ningxia], Kaogu 1 (1986): $4; Zhong Kan, “Ningxia Lingwu xian chutu di Xixia ciqi” [The Recovery of Xixia Ceramics in Lingwu County,

closely related but unpublished one in the Harvard University Art Museums

A

i)

Kaogu 10 (1987): 909, fig. 8 and pl. 4, no. 2.

Wenwu

1992), p. 105, no. 75 and n.p., pl. 75.

See Shi, Bai, Wu, Xixia wenwu, n.p., no. 277; also see a

jingping bottle in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (accession number 26.292.60) in Cox, The Book of Pottery

1 See Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo Nei Menggu gongzuodui [Inner Mongolian Work Team, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences], “Ningxia Lingwu xian Ciyaobao ciyaozhi fajue jianbao” [A Brief Report on the Excavation of the Ceramic Kiln Site at Ciyaobao, Lingwu County, Ningxia],

Ningxia],

&.

See Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo Nei Menggu gongzuodui, “Ningxia Lingwu xian Ciyaobao ciyaozhi fajue jianbao,” p. 911, figs. 12-13; for a jar ina

See Medley,

The Chinese Potter, p. 188, no. 140.

See Ning Duxue et al., “Gansu Wuwei Xijiao Linyang Xixia mu gingli” [Investigation of a Xixia Tomb at Linyang, Xijiao, Wuwei, Gansu Province], Kaogu yu wenwu 3 (1980): 63-66; Zhong Changfa, “Wuwei chutu yipi Xixia cigi” [The Recovery of a Group of Xixia Ceramics at Wuwei],

Wenwu 9 (1981): 89-90; Ning Duxue,

“Wuwei

Xijiao faxian Xixia mu” [The Discovery of a Xixia Tomb in Xijiao, Wuweil, Kaogu yu wenwu 4 (1984): III. 16

See note 6 above, p. 1092, fig. I, no. 1, and n.p., pl. 7,

no. 3; Wang Ningping, “Wenwu gongzuo baodao: Nei Menggu zizhiqu— Yinmengjunwang qi faxian heiyou kehua ping” [Antiquities News: Inner Mongolia— The Discovery of a Black-Glazed Bottle with Cut-Glaze Decoration in Yinmengjunwang County], Wenwu cankao ziliao § (1958): 72; Li Yiyou, “Nei Menggu Tuoketuo cheng di kaogu faxian” [Archaeological Discoveries at Tuoketuo, Inner Mongolia], (1981): 210-17.

Wenwu ziliao congkan 4

17 Museum of Fine Arts accession number 50.1172; see Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection: Memorial Exhibition, p. 78; Tseng and Dart, The Charles B.

Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, vol. 2,

Chinese Art: Liao, Sung, and Yiian Dynasties, n.p., no. 110.

18 Present whereabouts unknown; see Cox, The Book of Pottery and Porcelain, p. 177, pl. 52, lower left illustration.

19 See Chen Wanli, Songdai beifang minjian cigi [Northern Folk Ceramics of the Song Dynasty] (Beijing, 1955), Pp. 29-30.

i FLAT-SHOULDERED CARINATED SCROLLING

BOTTLE

MOUTH PEONY

WITH

AND DECOR

Xixia kingdom, 12th—early 13th century Cizhou-type cut-glaze ware: light gray stoneware with rust brown glaze, the decoration cut into the glaze before firing From the Ciyaobao kilns, Lingwu county, Ningxia Huizu Autonomous Region H. 31.0 cm; Diam.

15.6 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Choate [1977.22]

Bulging just slightly at midpoint, the relatively straight walls of this jingping bottle rise from the small circular foot to the flat shoulder; a cylindrical neck with carinated mouth crowns the top. The thick footring with its flat bottom and angled inner wall circumscribes the broad, flat, countersunk base. Stopping short of the foot, the rust brown glaze that covers the exterior ends in two inverted parabolas. Bordered above and below by thick bowstring lines, a single wide band of cut-glaze floral decoration emblazons the bottle. The decorative scheme includes two large peony blossoms, each connected to an encircling leafy stem that springs from the composition’s lower border. The unembellished band of glaze below the decorative register harmonizes with the unornamented glaze on the shoulder, neck, and mouth. The shaved background areas fired an oatmeal color, as did the exposed body clay on the vessel’s underside. This bottle was wheel-turned in sections that were assembled after drying. Once the pieces had been luted together, the bottle was immersed in the glaze slurry; the twin parabolas that form the lower glaze edge indicate that it was dipped twice, while the smudges along the glaze edge reveal the points where the potter held the bottle during application. After the glaze had stabilized, the potter incised the outlines of the design and then shaved the glaze from the background areas. The incised outlines are clearly visible along the glaze edges within

the decorated area; caramel flecks on the background represent bits of glaze incompletely shaved from the surface. The bottle was fired right side up. Of the same form as the previous bottle from the Shinkeido Collection (no. 73), this jingping bottle was also made in the twelfth or early thirteenth century at the Ciyaobao kilns, in Lingwu county, Ningxia Huizu Autonomous Region. Although many vessels from the Ciyaobao kilns feature their principal decorative motifs in geometric panels set against a ground

of rolling waves, another group presents bold floral scrolls against plain grounds. The decorative scrolls on such vessels usually include two large blossoms; the peony predominates, though other flowers, particularly the mallow, do occur."

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

201

white slip before applying the glaze. Because the exposed body clay assumed an oatmeal color in firing, the brown-glazed designs thus appear against a buff ground rather than a white one. Also made by the Ciyaobao kilns, guan jars with almost identical peony scrolls incised and shaved into their dark brown glaze have been recovered in Y1jinhuoluo county in Inner Mongolia. Its present whereabouts unknown, a virtually identical jingping bottle is illustrated in a Chinese publication.° PROVENANCE:

Collection

C. T. Loo Collection; Warren E. Cox

PUBLISHED: Warren E. Cox, The Book of Pottery and Porcelain, rev. ed., vol. 1 (New York, 1970), p. 176, pl. 51, upper

right illustration.

1 See Shi, Bai, Wu, Xixia wenwu, n.p., no. 277; also see a

jingping bottle in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (accession number 26.292.60) in Cox, The Book of Pottery and Porcelain, p. 176, pl. 51, lower left illustration; and a

closely related but unpublished one in the Harvard University Art Museums ee

a

(accession number

1942.185.391).

2 See Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China, pp. 68-69, no. 22; 212-13, no. 94 and figs. 274, 276.

3 See Mowry, Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, p. 70 (no. 1979.154); Percival David

Foundation, Imperial Taste, p. 58, no. 29; Medley, Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p., pls. 35B, 36A—B, 45B, 46, 49,

Side view, no. 74

SOA—B, 52B, $5A—B.

Floral scrolls comprising a leafy stem encircling a blossom appear already in the borders of eighthcentury wall paintings in the Buddhist cave temples at Dunhuang, in Gansu province. Though it never enjoyed the popularity of the simple floral scroll with blossoms linked by a horizontal, S-curved stem, the “wraparound” scroll had been assimilated into the repertory of standard Cizhou wares by the eleventh century; it continued to be used, if sparingly, in standard Cizhou wares during the Liao, Jin, and Yuan periods, finding its way into the underglazecobalt-blue and underglaze-copper-red porcelains made at Jingdezhen in the second half of the fourteenth century.’ Unique among such wraparound scrolls, those on vessels from Ciyaobao are often discontinuous, as attested by the present bottle from the Harvard University Art Museums; rather than springing from a shared leafy stem, each blossom claims its own encircling stalk that grows from the sround line established by the composition’s lower border. Unlike their counterparts at the Cizhou-type kilns in the Central Plains, potters at the Ciyaobao kilns seldom, if ever, coated their cut-glaze vessels with

202.

Hare’s Fur,

Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

4 See Gao and Wang, “Nei Menggu Yyinhuoluo qi faxian Xixia jlaocang wenwu,” n.p., pl. 7, nos. 1-2. s See Chen, Songdai beifang minjian ciqi, p. 31.

Yo COMPRESSED WITH AND

FOUR

CIRCULAR

CANTEEN

HANDLES

STYLIZED

FLORAL

DECOR

Xixia kingdom or Jin to Yuan dynasty, late 12th—-13th

century

Cizhou-type cut-glaze ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration cut into the glaze before firing, with a brush-written inscription on the base reading Zhang hu H.. 9.2 em; Diam.

24.7 an

R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection

[5240]

Lens-shaped in section, this unusual canteen boasts a compressed, circular form; its overall shape re-

sembles two convex discs joined at the perimeter by a narrow, indented band. A short spout with

double-ringed lip angles upward from the outer edge of the bottle’s upper face. Arcing over the hollow created by the indented wall, four short strap handles link the upper and lower faces; with the spout in the twelve-o’clock position, the handles appear in the two-, four-, eight-, and ten-o’clock positions. A cir-

cular foot of medium diameter occupies the center of the underside; the thick footring has an angled outer

wall, a flat bottom, and a vertical inner wall. The broad, countersunk base is flat and shallow. A dark

brown glaze, appearing black, covers the canteen’s exterior, excluding the foot and a broad ring surrounding it; the exposed body clay on the underside and on the canteen’s unglazed interior fired a light putty gray. Set roughly an inch from the edge, a pair of bowstring lines demarcates the circular, decorative field on the canteen’s upper face; divided into four tear-shaped panels dispersed about a slightly depressed central medallion, the decorative field features stylized leaf sprays in cut-glaze technique. Abbreviated leaf sprays fill the interstices between the panels; incised cloud scrolls embellish the central medallion and the broad band of glaze that frames the decorative field. The canteen was wheel-thrown as two wide, shallow bowls that were joined together after drying; once the halves had been assembled, the spout and handles were set in place, after which the canteen was immersed upside down in the glaze slurry, probably in a single dipping, as suggested by the relatively even glaze edge. Since the hollow vessel would have tended to float in the thick slurry, the potter had to push it downward to submerse it, so the glaze would cover the lower face, as revealed by

the handprint on the base. After the glaze had stabilized, the outlines were incised and the glaze shaved from the background areas of the design. The canteen was fired right side up. Written with a brush after firing, an ink inscription reading Zhang hu appears on the base. Canteens or bottles of compressed circular form are usually termed bianhu [flattened jars] in Chinese. Those with two handles are called shuang’er [doubleeared] or shuangxi |double-handled] bianhu canteens, while those with four handles, like the present jar, are called si’er [four-eared] or sixi [four-handled] bianhu canteens. Chinese texts sometimes characterize such vessels as aoxing or guixing, both meaning “tortoise-shaped.”’ Canteens of this type are rare among Chinese ceramics; pre-Ming examples are almost invariably the products of northern kilns, suggesting that such pieces were made for peoples in outlying areas, or were influenced by their vessels. In fact, such canteens echo Near and Middle Eastern

metalwork shapes, heralding the renewed influence from the West that began to reach China in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Canteens of this type anticipate those in blue-and-white porcelain that were occasionally made at Jingdezhen in the early fifteenth century.’ The bianhu canteens best known today are those made in Xixia times by the Ciyaobao kilns in Lingwu county, Ningxia Huizu Autonomous Re-

gion, which often have a dark brown glaze enlivened with cut-glaze decoration.” Xixia canteens made in Lingwu county differ from this handsome example from the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection in

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

203

county, Gansu province.° Both have indented sides,

clearly differentiated tops and bottoms, and angled spouts. In his published report on the Gansu find, Liu Dezhen did not attribute the canteen to a particular kiln, but he noted that many of the ceramics recovered resemble those made at the Yaozhou and Anren kilns.’ Whether or not this canteen could have been made at the Yaozhou kilns remains uncertain, but it is likely that it was made at a kiln in the Central Plains. The stylized leaf decoration on this canteen shows a kinship to that on the small pou jar from the Gordon Collection (no. 67) and to that on the large guan jar from the Scheinman Collection (no. 69). This canteen’s decoration differs from that on those jars in combining cut-glaze elements with incised elements, such as the cloud scrolls in the central medallion and in the band surrounding the decorative field. The similarity nevertheless suggests that this canteen was made in the late twelfth or thirteenth century. Both the date and the meaning of the brushwritten inscription reading Zhang hu on the base are unclear. Hu means “storage jar” and no doubt refers to this vessel; written with a different character from

the surname of the same pronunciation, Zhang is the name of a river that flows through parts of Shanxi, Henan, and Hebei provinces. If the inscription is contemporaneous with the vessel’s manufacture, it might mean that the canteen was made, bought, or

used in the Zhang River valley; if the inscription is modern, it might mean that the canteen was found there. 1 Freer Gallery accession number $8.2; see Freer Gallery of Art, The Freer Gallery of Art, vol. 1, China, p. 175, no. 97

and n.p., pl. 97.

204

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

i) ty

See Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo Nei Menggu gongzuodui, “Ningxia Lingwu xian Ciyaobao ciyaozhi diaocha,” p. $4, fig. 5.

4 Shi, Bai, Wu, Xixia wenwu, p. 317, nos. 285-86.

per face, as it does on this example. Fourth, on can-

teens from Lingwu the spout runs parallel to the canteen’s long axis; it is not set at an angle as it is on this piece. Fifth, the mouth is usually carinated rather than double-ringed on Lingwu canteens.° Though not identical, this canteen 1s close in form to one recovered in 1982 at Bailizhen, in Lingtai

See Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo Nei Menggu gongzuodui, “Ningxia Lingwu xian Ciyaobao ciyaozhi diaocha,” p. 54, fig. 5 and n.p., pl. 7, no. 17; Shi, Bai, Wu, Xixia wenwu, n.p., nos. 283-86.

”

several important ways, however. First, canteens from Lingwu have a convex side wall embellished with a relief ridge, sometimes serrated, in place of this vessel’s indented side wall. Second, the upper and lower faces of Lingwu canteens are identically shaped, each with a short footring in the center,’ and the two faces are identically glazed and decorated;* top and bottom thus are not differentiated in Lingwu canteens, with the result that either face could properly serve as the top. Third, not only is the spout of stout proportions on canteens from Lingwu, but it emerges from the side wall rather than from the up-

Even if canteens from Lingwu seem always to have carinated mouths, bottles from Lingwu occasionally have ringed mouths; see Gao and Wang, “Nei Menggu Yyinhuoluo qi faxian Xixia jiaocang wenwu,” p. 1092, fig. I, no. 4 and pl. 7, no. 4; Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo Nei Menggu gongzuodui, “Ningxia Lingwu xian Ciyaobao ciyaozhi fajue jianbao,” p. 911, figs, 12-13.

6 See Liu Dezhen, “Gansu Lingtai Bailizhen chutu yipi Songdai wenwu” [The Recovery of a Group of SongPeriod Artifacts at Bailizhen, Lingtai County, Gansu Province], Kaogu 4 (1987): 339, fig. 2, no. 5. 7 Ibid., p. 342.

76 TEA

BOWL

AND

BROWN

WITH

INDENTED

HaARE’S-FUR

LIP

MARKINGS

Northern to Southern Song period, 12th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide, the base with an incised inscription reading Gongyu From the kilns at Shuyi, Jianyang county, Fujian province, probably from those at Luhuaping or Chidun H, 8.1 cm: Diam,

12.2.em

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Shumei Culture Foundation Fund [1995.7]

This tea bowl has a small circular foot, steeply pitched walls, and a lightly indented, vertical lip. A subtly angled change of profile occurs approximately three-quarters of an inch above the foot: below the angle the walls ascend somewhat more gently; above it they rise more steeply. Relatively thin at the

mouth, the walls thicken as they descend, so that the

bowl is surprisingly heavy for its size. The short foot has straight walls of intermediate thickness; the flat base is exceptionally shallow. Appearing black, a lustrous dark brown glaze covers the bowl inside and out, stopping in a thick welt at the the angle above the foot. Although the dark glaze crawled away from the mouth in firing, a russet slip neatly conceals the body clay; gravity pulled particles of the iron-rich slip downward during firing, creating the brown hare’s-fur pattern on the glaze surface. The exposed

76

body clay on the bowl’s underside fired a purplish brown. The bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which the two-character inscription reading Gongyu was incised into the base. Once it had dried, the bowl was immersed in the glaze slurry, and then allowed to dry again, after which the rim was dipped in an iron-oxide-laden slip. The piece was fired right side up, seated in its saggar on a small biscuit-shaped clay cushion. The shape, dark body, black glaze, and hare’s-fur markings identify this bowl as a product of the Jian kilns in northern Fujian province. Despite the claims of older books in both Chinese and English, the kilns did not originate in Jian’an and subsequently move to neighboring Jianyang, nor did they operate first in Jianyang and then move to Shuji, nor did they ever operate in Jiangxi province. Rather, as modern archaeology has clearly established, the kilns have always been situated at Shuiji, a market town in Jianyang county; the confusion over the kilns’ location apparently resulted from the many changes of name the region has witnessed in its two thousand years of recorded history.’ Spread over several square miles, numerous kilns were active in the area to the south-southeast of Shuyi. During his travels there in 1935, James Mar-

shall Plumer explored sites near the villages of Houjing, Dalu Houmen, and Chidun.” Succeeding investigations have made important finds near the hamlets of Luhuaping, Yingzhanggan, Yuantoukeng,

and Niupilun, with those at Luhuaping proving the

most fruitful.

Excavations and other investigations carried out in

1954, 1960, 1977, and 1989-92 have revealed that the

kilns at Shuyi were active from the late Tang, if not earlier, through the Yuan. During the Tang and Five Dynasties periods, they produced celadon wares, probably in imitation of the aristocratic wares made at the Yue kilns in Zhejiang province; their output included a variety of jars, ewers, bowls, and dishes, with the last two named forms clearly in the majority. By the Song dynasty, their period of greatest achievement, the kilns had come to specialize in the production of dark-glazed wares, to the exclusion of all others; their repertory of vessel shapes shrank to include only tea bowls, which they made in three basic shapes—conical, trumpet-mouthed, and funnel-shaped—and in three basic sizes—small, medium, and large. Production of dark-glazed wares dwindled in the Yuan dynasty, as the kilns turned to the manufacture of gingbai porcelain. The Jian kilns ceased production after the Yuan, unable to compete in the manufacture of decorated porcelain with the kiln complexes at Linchuan, Nanfeng, and

Jingdezhen.#

The various kilns at Shuiji began as kilns supply-

ing a local market; as local tastes changed, the kilns

created new wares to meet the changing demand. The style and aesthetics associated with classic Jian tea bowls originated at the Jian kilns, apparently

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

205

Detail, no. 76

without outside influence. Because Fujian tea was considered the finest in China by Song times, however, there were undoubtedly numerous local connoisseurs who offered advice and comment to the potters about the qualities an ideal tea bowl should possess. As Fujianese tea-drinking customs developed and spread during the Northern Song, the Jian kilns’ dark-glazed tea bowls gained renown throughout the nation.

According to Lu Yu’s eighth-century Chajing [Classic of Tea], the red tea consumed during the Tang looked best in pale bluish green bowls, so

celadon-glazed Yue ware bowls were preferred.*> By

Northern Song times, tea from Jianxi—in northern Fujian province and not far removed from Shuiji and the Jian kilns—was considered the very best, having supplanted the teas from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Sichuan that had been prized during the Tang. From the late tenth century onward, the Northern Song government operated the Beiyuan tea plantation at Jianxi, so that tea for the court was produced under imperial auspices and patronage.° Known as Jiancha (Jian tea), tea from Jianxi was white-leafed; when dried, powdered, and whisked in a bowl with hot water, it produced a frothy, milk-white beverage termed “whipped tea.””’ Connoisseurs of the Northern Song believed that the white tea looked best in black-glazed bowls, so kilns in north and south alike increased their production of dark-glazed wares. In the late Northern Song, tea from the Beiyuan gardens, spring water from Huishan (near Wuxi), and hare’s-fur tea bowls from Jian’an came to be termed collectively the “three excellences” (sanjue) by members of the court and intelligentsia in Bianjing (present-day Kaifeng), the Northern Song capital.” Mentioned only in passing in Lu Yu’s Chajing,’ Fujian tea owes its rise from obscurity to national prominence to the staunch advocacy of several native

206

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

sons who wielded influence at court during the Five Dynasties and early Northern Song periods. Those advocates promoted not only Jian tea, but the teadrinking customs and conventions associated with it, including both Jian tea bowls and Jian-style tea contests, in which learned contestants competed in preparing tea, whose quality would be judged on the basis of taste, fragrance, and appearance. Among the first of those to advocate Jian tea was Zhang Tinghui, a native of the Jianxi area, who recommended it to the court in the tenth century."° During the eleventh century, both Ding Wei (962-1033), who authored a now-lost, three-chapter work entitled Chatu [Tea IIlustrated], and Cai Xiang (1012-1067) promoted Jian tea at court. In particular, Cai Xiang, who held high posts in the government, introduced specially selected Jian tea; at the instruction of Emperor Renzong (Zhao Shouy1; 1010-1063; r. 1022-1063), Cal composed a two-chapter treatise on tea entitled Chalu [A Record of Tea], in which he named white Longfeng tea’* from Fujian the very best and hare’sfur-streaked tea bowls from Jian’an the most appropriate.'? By the early twelfth century, the artistically talented Emperor Huizong (Zhao Ji; 1082-1135; r. I100—-I125) was not only an enthusiastic devotee of Jian tea, but of Jian tea culture, including Jian tea bowls and Jian-style tea competitions, as evinced by the laudatory comments in his Daguan chalun [A Discourse on Tea in the Daguan Era] of 1107."* Histori-

cal records note that in 1112 Emperor Huizong staged a sumptuous banquet in the Taiqing Pavilion to honor his favorite minister, Cai Jing (1046—

1126);'> the records further note that the Emperor

not only had the rarest delicacies brought from afar for the banquet, but used hare’s-fur bowls from Jian’an for serving tea, indicating the high esteem in which Jian ware was held.'° For reasons not fully understood, the taste for Jian tea bowls waned in the Southern Song, at least at court, which by then had

retreated from Bianjing to Lin’an (present-day Hangzhou). Cheng Dachang (1123-1195) remarked in his

Yanfan lu, for example, that when the Southern Song Emperor Xiaozong (Zhao Bocong; 1127-1194; r. 1162-1189), served tea, he seldom used Jian bowls,

preferring conical white ones instead.'7 The date of the earliest Jian tea bowl remains uncertain, but literary evidence indicates that the Jian kilns had achieved a measure of fame for their russetsplashed bowls by the late tenth century. In his collection of miscellanea entitled Qingyilu, Tao Gu (903-970)'* mentioned, for example, that “[Among] the tea bowls made in Min [Fujian] are ones decorated with partridge-feather mottles; connoisseurs of tea prize them.”*? Cai Xiang, the statesman and

calligrapher mentioned above, further noted in his Chalu, written between

1049 and 1053, that

Tea is white, so black bowls are best. The tea

bowls made at Jian’an are deep; in color, they are bluish black with hare’s-fur markings. Such

bowls are thick-bodied; once warmed they retain their heat, so the tea does not cool too

quickly. Tea bowls from other regions are

either too thin or too purplish brown [zi],*°

so they are not as good as those from Jian’an.

Connoisseurs who participate in tea contests do not use bluish white [gingbai] tea bowls, so

we need not discuss them.*'

Cai Xiang’s comments clearly refer to standard Jian ware tea bowls, indicating that such bowls were prized by the mid-eleventh century. In his Daguan chalun, Emperor Huizong also proclaimed Jian bowls the best, declaring those with hare’s-fur markings (tuhaowen) to be the most desirable.?? Even if the date of the earliest Jian tea bowl cannot yet be determined, the literary record confirms that such bowls were well-known by the late tenth century and popular in the most rarefied circles by the early twelfth. Although much archaeological work remains to be carried out at the kiln sites, excavations there have

confirmed the manufacture of classic Jian tea bowls in the Northern Song period.”? Though treasured by emperors, Jian ware was not an imperial ware per se, in that the kilns did not produce ceramics exclusively for the court, nor were they owned, operated, or supervised by the government. Because Jian tea bowls were prized at court, however, the kilns supplied tribute ware each year. Some rare bowls have characters reading jinzhan, or “presentation tea bowl,” on their shallow bases;*4 only slightly less rare, other bowls, such as the present one, have characters reading gongyu, or “imperial tribute,” on their bases. Always in fine calligraphy, the characters reading jinzhan are invariably stamped —aimpressed into the moist clay after the bowl had been shaped on the wheel and its footring cut with a knife. The characters reading gongyu, by contrast, are always incised. Traditional sources usually comment that the calligraphy of gongyu marks is poor;*> in fact, the calligraphy of such marks ranges from poor to excellent, the latter type exemplified by this magnificent bowl from the Harvard University Art Museums. Although bowls with tribute marks are not mentioned in the Song literary record and few intact examples are extant, abundant evidence from the kiln sites attests to the authenticity of such bowls.”° The dating of tea bowls with jinzhan and gongyu

tribute marks has occasioned some controversy in re-

cent years. In the study based on his 1935 visit to

Shuiji, Plumer merely stated that bowls with tribute marks must have been intended for the court at Kaifeng or Hangzhou, indicating they might be of either Northern or Southern Song date.*” Contrasting the

numerous mentions of Jian ware bowls and Jian-style

tea contests in records from the Northern Song with the relatively few mentions in records from the Southern Song, other scholars, such as Zhang Linsheng (Chang Lin-sheng), have concluded that Jian bowls enjoyed their greatest popularity during the Northern Song, and that imperial tribute bowls thus most likely date to the mid- and late Northern Song.** Basing his conclusions on a detailed examination and comparison of three texts,7? Gu Wenbi believes that Jian bowls with tribute marks first appeared in the late Northern Song and continued to be made during the first four decades of Southern Song, their period of greatest desirability falling be-

tween 1112 and 1170.°° Despite the wealth of data

they have contributed, excavations at the Jian kiln sites have thus far yielded few dated artifacts that would establish absolute dates for the various strata investigated, let alone for individual pieces. Those archaeologically recovered tea-bowl fragments with tribute marks have largely been assigned to the late Northern Song period.?" Although they are usually called wan today, bowls designed and used exclusively for drinking tea were called zhan during the Song and Jin periods.*? Jian tea bowls of the shape epitomized by this example are often termed yankou wan, or narrow-mouthed bowls, to distinguish them from the pie,?3 or conical tea bowls, that were also made at the Jian kilns. Developed in the Northern Song, yankou wan bowls were used for drinking whipped tea; conical pie bowls, by contrast, descend from the Tang, when tea

was often prepared together with scallions, ginger, orange peel, jujubes, dogwood berries, and peppermint.** Those drinking the tea consumed not only the liquid, but the the various other ingredients as well; conical bowls proved ideal for such tea, as the sloping walls permitted the consumption of the solid ingredients more readily than did the much more steeply pitched walls of yankou wan bowls. Yankou wan bowls are often characterized in modern Chinese literature as “funnel-shaped,” since they have a narrow bottom and steeply pitched walls. Because the walls thicken as they descend, such bowls have a low center of gravity, so they are stable despite the small foot. Yankou wan bowls were the only ones used in the Fujian-style tea competitions that became popular at

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

207

Kaogu 4 (1964): 191-93; Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yan-

court in the Northern Song; they are also the only type that sport jinzhan and gongyu marks, as conical pie bowls wholly lack such tribute marks. Reflecting imperial taste for black-glazed tea bowls, tribute marks have so far been found only on Jian pieces with black glazes embellished with delicate hare’s-fur

jiu,” pp. 256-69; Zeng, “Fujian taoci di lishi,” n.p., Part Five; Ye Wencheng, “‘Jianyao’ chutan” [A Preliminary Consideration of Jian Ware] in Zhongguo gudai yaozhi diaocha fajue baogao ji, Wenwu bianji weiyuanhui, pp. 146-54; Kamei Meitoku, Fukken sho koydseki shutsudo tojiki no kenkyii [Research on Ceramics Recovered from

markings or white pearl-like mottles;?> they have not

Ancient Kiln Sites in Fujian Province]

recovered, russet-

a gongyu tribute mark, 1s Gallery of Art, Washbowl, with a gongyu

ox

4-6; Zhang Linsheng [Chang Lin-sheng], “Jian zhan yu

Bei Song di doucha” [Jian Tea Bowls and Tea Competitions in the Northern Song], Gugong jikan, vol. 13, no. I (1978): 82-83.

cial Museum],

Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu,” p. 257. Lu, Chajing, p. $0; Lu, The Classic of Tea, p. 148.

IO

1H

I

exh. cat., Tea Ceremony Institute (Kyoto,

too

i)

Plumer, Temmoku: A Study of the Ware of Chien, p. 33-37.

13

15

oe

208

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Cai Xiang, Chalu [A Record of Tea], in Chashi chadian, pp. 87, 90.

For information on Cai Jing, see Rolf Trauzettel, “Ts’ai

Ching,” in Sung Biographies, vol. 3, pp. 1026-29.

Chang, “Sung Chien Ware,” p. 10; Zhang, “Jian zhan yu Bei Song di doucha,” p. 85.

Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu,” p. 261.

For information on the kilns and their evolution, see

1976), pp. 1026-29.

Literally, “Dragon-Phoenix tea,” a reference to the pattern of dragons and phoenixes that appeared on cakes of tea prepared for the palace. In preparing such solid cakes, the tea leaves were ground to a paste that was shaped into bricks or cakes impressed with dragon-and-phoenix designs, and then dried. The name thus refers to the appearance of the dried tea cakes rather than to their place of production.

Huizong, Daguan chalun [A Discourse on Tea of the Daguan Era], in Chashi chadian, pp. 94-103. Huizong himself entitled the work Chalun [A Discourse on Tea]; succeeding generations expanded the title to Daguan chalun, to indicate that it was written in the Daguan era (1107-1110) of Huizong’s reign.

Ceramics] series, vol. 27 (Shanghai, 1988), n.p., Part Five;

Song, ““Jianyao’ diaocha ji,” pp. 50-65; Xiamen daxue renleixue bowuguan [Museum of Anthropology, Xiamen (Amoy) University], “Fujian Jianyang Shuiji Song Jianyao fajue jianbao” [A Brief Report on the Excavation of the Song Jian Kilns at Shuiji, Jianyang, Fujian Province],

For information on Cai Xiang, see Y. Shiba, “Ts’ai (Wiesbaden,

I

1994), pp. 256-57. Fujian sheng bowuguan, Xiamen daxue, and Jianyang xian wenhuaguan [Fujian Provincial Museum, Xiamen (Amoy) University, and Jianyang County Museum], “Fujian Jianyang Luhuaping yaozhi fajue jianbao” [A Bnef Report on the Excavations at the Luhuaping Kiln Site in Jianyang County, Fujian] in Zhongguo gudai yaozhi diaocha fajue baogao ji [Collected Reports of Investigations and Excavations at Ancient Chinese Kiln Sites], Wenwu bianji weiyuanhui [Wenwu Editorial Committee] (Beijing, 1984), pp. 137-45; Zeng Fan, “Fujian taoci di lishi” [A History of Fujian Ceramics], in Zhongguo taoci bianji weiyuanhui [Chinese Ceramics Editorial Committee], Fujian taoci [Ceramics of Fujian], Zhongguo taoci [Chinese

Chang, “Sung Chien Ware,” p. 4; Zhang, “Jian zhan yu Bei Song di doucha,” p. 82. Hsiang,” in Sung Biographies, ed. Herbert Franke, vol. 3

i)

A Special Exhibition], Chad6 shiryokan [Tea Ceremony Institute] and Fukken shd hakubutsukan [Fujian Provin-

co

Held in Shanghai from November 1 to 5, 1982, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Academia Sinica (Beijing, 1986),

Chang, “Sung Chien Ware,” pp. 4-5; Zhang, “Jian zhan yu Bei Song di doucha,” pp. 82-83.

Oo

~“

Zeng Fan, “On the Problems Concerning Jian Kilns and Dehua Kilns,” in Scientific and Technological Insights on Ancient Chinese Pottery and Porcelain: Proceedings of the International Conference on Ancient Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

Wares Preserved as Heirloom Pieces in Japan:

Chang Lin-sheng, “Sung Chien Ware: A Suggestion for a Revised Dating in the Light of Knowledge of the TeaMuseum Bulletin, vol. 16, no. 6 (January—February 1982):

tion of the Jian Kilns’), Wenwu cankao ziliao 3 (1955): 55;

Temmoku

Lu Yu, Chajing, in Chashi chadian [Standard Works on Tea and Its History], ed. Zhu Xiaoming (Taipei, 1981), p. 22; Lu Yu, The Classic of Tea (Boston and Toronto,

Drinking Contests of the Northern Sung,” National Palace

Temmoku: A

Study of the Ware of Chien, Idemitsu Art Gallery Series 7 (Tokyo, 1972), ed. Caroline I. Plumer, pp. 7-17; Song Boying, ““‘Jianyao’ diaocha ji” [Notes on the Investiga-

pp. 241-42; Zeng Fan, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu” [Research on the Jian Kilns] in Karamono temmoku— Fukken shd kenyd shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten [Chinese Temmoku—Temmoku Wares Recovered from the Jian Kilns in Fujian Province and

1995),

1974), trans. by Francis Ross Carpenter, pp. 90-93.

mark, is in the Meiyintang Collection.*” t See discussions in James Marshall Plumer,

(Tokyo,

pp. 68-74. A”

occurred on archaeologically skinned Jian tea bowls. A related bowl, also with in the collection of the Freer ington, D.C.;3° another such

Ly 18

Zhang, “Jian zhan yu Bei Song di doucha,” p. 85. For information on Tao Gu, see T. Terada, “T’ao Ku,”

in Sung Biographies, vol. 3, pp. 1004-6.

19 Quoted in Feng, “Cong wenxian kan Tang Song yilai yincha fengshang ji taoci chaju di yanbian,” p. 10.

20 The exact meaning of zi in this context is unclear. Many scholars interpret it to mean that the dark glaze has purplish undertones rather than the desired bluish cast; it is

35 See Chado shiryOkan and Fukken shd hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyd shutsudo temmoku

very possible, however, that Cai Xiang used the term to

Zeng, “Wenbo jianxun: ‘Jianzhan’ di xin faxian,” p. 96.

refer to russet-skinned dark glazes (see discussion of the

term 2i in cat. no. 12). If Cai indeed meant russet bowls,

to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, p. 61, no. 41;

36

he might have been referring not only to russet-skinned

written in brush and ink with characters reading gongyu, apparently because the original inscription was not incised deeply enough to be readily legible. The date of the brush-written characters is unknown.

Jian bowls but to russet-skinned Ding, Yaozhou, and Cizhou-type bowls as well (compare cat. nos. 14-15, 20,

and 26). Since Cai was advocating the use of Jian ware, disparaging references to the products of competing kilns could be expected, especially given the esteem in which the court held Ding ware in the eleventh century.

21 Cai, Chalu, p. 90; also quoted in Song, “‘Jianyao’ diaocha ii, (ey 22 Huizong, Daguan chalun, p. 98. 23 Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu,” p. 258. 24 Plumer’s mention of a bowl fragment with an impressed mark reading jingian must represent a misreading of a jinzhan mark, the characters being similarly written. Plumer, Temmoku: A Study of the Ware of Chien, p. 78. 25 See, for example, Song, “‘Jianyao’ diaocha ji,” p. 65. 26 Zeng Fan, “Wenbo jianxun: ‘Jianzhan’ di xin faxian” [Cultural and Museum News: A New Find (Concerning) ‘Jian Tea Bowls’],

Wenwu

10 (1990): 96.

Unpublished; Freer Gallery of Art accession number FI1.370. The mark on the Freer tea bow] has been over-

37 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, p. 285, no. $29.

77 TEA BOWL WITH INDENTED Lip, YELLOW HaRE’S-FUR MARKINGS, AND METAL RIM Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide, the lip bound with tin, the base with an incised number, and the lower portion of the bowl with a brush-written inscription reading Shang zhaiji

27 Plumer, Temmoku: A Study of the Ware of Chien, p. 77.

From the kilns at Shuyyji, Jianyang county, Fujian province

28 Chang, “Sung Chien Ware,” p. 11; Zhang, “Jian zhan yu Bei Song di doucha,”’p. 86-87.

Fi. 6.7 ‘cms, Digi,

29 The three texts are Cai Jing’s Taiginglou teyan ji, Cheng Dachang’s Yanfan lu, and Zhou Mi’s Qianchun suishi ji. 30 Gu Wenbi, “Jianyao ‘Gongyu,’ ‘Jinzhan’ di niandai wenti— Xuanhe yishi ‘Jianxi yihao zhan’ zhengwu” [On the Dating of Jian Wares with ‘Gongyuw’ and ‘Jinzhan’ Marks— Corrections to the ‘Jianxi Tea Bowls with FurMarked Glazes’ Section of Xuanhe yishi], Nanjing bowuyuan jikan 6 (December 1983): 71 (special issue commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Nanjing Museum); also quoted in Zeng, “Wenbo jianxun: ‘Jianzhan’ di xin faxian,”’ p. 96; and in Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu,” —

Pp. 2601.

3

See Chad6 shiryOkan and Fukken shé hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken shé kenyd shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: 347, cat. nos. 40-41,

Tokubetsuten, pp. 60-61, 64,

46.

32 Li Huibing et al., “Kaogu yanjiusuo sishinian yanjiu chengguo zhanlan bitan” [A Review of the Exhibition Featuring Forty Years of Achievement by the Institute of Co bo

Archaeology], Kaogu

1 (1991): 74.

Drawn from the terminology of calligraphy, “pie” refers to a slanting brushstroke that is written with the brush moving from upper right to lower left; when used in de-

ww —

scribing ceramic ware, the term refers to the slanting walls of a wide-, or trumpet-, mouthed bowl.

Lu, Chajing, pp. 27-28; Lu, The Classic of Tea, p. 116; Chang, “Sung Chien Ware,” p. 4; Zhang, “Jian zhan yu Bei Song di doucha,” p. 8s.

12.4

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane Fund for the

Acquisition of Oriental Art

[1992.74]

Of funnel shape, this large yankou wan tea bowl stands on a small circular foot; its walls expand rapidly and then, at an angle roughly three-quarters of an inch above the foot, begin a steeper ascent to the almost vertical rim with its lightly indented lip. A straight-walled footring of intermediate thickness surrounds the flat, shallow base, which corresponds

to the small floor on the interior. Thin at the lip, the walls thicken as they descend, so the bowl is both heavy and stable. A lustrous dark brown glaze which appears bluish black covers the bowl inside and out, stopping in a thick roll at the angle above the foot; two nascent glaze tears project downward from the otherwise relatively even glaze edge. A delicate pattern of yellow hare’s-fur streaks rings the bowl just below the lip on interior and exterior alike. Measuring 0.8 cm in width on the exterior and 0.9 cm on the interior, a wide band of thin, silvery metal con-

ceals the lip itself; small losses reveal the lip to be glazed on on the outside. Although the the lip fired purplish brown, underside fired medium gray.

from the metal band the inside, but unglazed exposed body clay at that on the bowl’s This bowl was wheel-

turned, after which the foot was cut with a knife and

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

209

inside another, bound together with cord, and placed in cylindrical wooden containers for shipping.’ Although many Jian tea bowls bear narrow bands of rolled metal today, most such bands were added in comparatively recent times to crown an especially treasured bowl or, more mundanely, to cover small rim chips or to conceal the naked body clay exposed in grinding the rim to lessen the effects of more severe damage. Original bands are usually either relatively wide and composed of a thin, foil-like metal,

often tin, such as relatively narrow weight of copper, thin metal usually and bronze often

the band on the present bowl,* or and composed of a slightly heavier bronze, or tin. Original bands of show losses, while those of copper show corrosion. Excavated in the

late 1970s, the remains of the Chinese merchant ship

Detail, no. 77

an inscription reading sanshiliu [thirty-six], sanshiiu [thirty-nine], or sanshi da [thirty large] was crudely

incised on the base. Once it had dried, the bow! was

dipped in the glaze slurry; after a second period of

drying, the rim was dipped in an iron-rich slip. The

bowl was fired right side up, seated in its saggar on a small biscuit-shaped clay cushion. The slip not only caused the lip to fire purplish brown, but caused hare’s-fur markings to form where it settled on the glaze surface during firing. The metal band was fitted around the bowl’s lip afterward. At some point an inscription reading Shang zhai ji was written in brush and ink on the bowl’s unglazed lower wall. This bowl’s most unusual feature is the metal band around its lip. Although white Ding bowls were customarily banded with metal to conceal their unglazed lips from the late eleventh century onward, and although dark-glazed Ding bowls were sometimes fitted with such bands to set them apart from the ordinary (see discussion no. 14), only the rare Jian tea bowl seems to have been so equipped. Since metal bands are not mentioned in association with Jian ware in Song-dynasty records, the reasons for finishing Jian bowls with them remains unknown. It may be that some clients wanted them affixed to their tea bowls in imitation of Ding and other northern wares. If devotees of tea found the slight roughness of the Jian bowl’s unglazed lip objectionable in drinking, it may also be that the bowls were capped to provide a smooth rim. Chéng Yangmo has suggested that at least some of the metal bands might have been considered temporary in Song times,

added to protect the lips from chipping during trans-

port and distribution, since bowls were stacked one

210

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

that sank off the coast of Sinan, Korea, in the early 1320s yielded numerous Jian tea bowls with metal bands, attesting to their use, at least for shipping, in the Yuan dynasty.? Classic Jian ware

has a coarse, slate gray to black

body that usually fires purplish brown where exposed, but may in some cases fire medium to dark gray, as it has in this example.* Such dark-bodied

wares are unusual in the context of later Chinese ce-

ramics, where taste characteristically favored porcelains and other light-bodied wares; in fact, the only other later Chinese glazed ceramic ware to have a dark body is guan ware, the official ware used at the Southern Song imperial court, which has a slate gray body covered with a grayish blue glaze that sometimes shows a pronounced pattern of crackles. The body clay’s unusually high iron content, which averages about 8 percent, gives Jian bowls their characteristic slate gray bodies and dark gray or purplish brown skins; the dark body intensifies the blackness of the glaze both visually, by providing a black sround, and technically, by contributing additional iron to the already iron-rich glaze mixture, which usually averages 5 to 8 percent.° Jian tea bowls sport a dark brown glaze that appears jet black on some pieces and bluish black on others. The lower portions of such bowls were intended to remain unglazed, but in some cases the glaze ran in tears all the way to the foot. Iron-oxidebearing slips were applied to the bowls before firing to create abstract decorative patterns, as they were to vessels made at kilns in northern China. Tenth- and eleventh-century authors who mention Jian bowls, such as Tao Gu and Huang Tingjian (1045-1105),

often remark upon their partridge-feather mottles (zhegu ban);° such native Fujianese authors as Cai

Xiang, however, usually state that Jian bowls with hare’s-fur markings are the best.’ In the early twelfth

Ti century, Emperor Huizong proclaimed those with hare’s-fur streaks or pearl-jade (zhuyu) markings* the most desirable.” Hare’s-fur streaks of the type that adorn this bowl and the previous one (no. 76) are the best-known markings associated with Jian ware today. Literature of the Song period includes other names for the furlike markings on Jian bowls, in addition to the well-known tuhao (hare’s fur); these include yuhao (jade fur), yihao (marvelous fur), tumao ban (hare’s hair mottles), and tuhe jinsi (hare brown

golden silk threads). Time has obscured the distinctions between these various patterns,’° but they no doubt had to do with the color, density, and distribu-

tion of the markings. Apart from those rare tea bowls with imperial tribute marks reading gongyu and jinzhan (see discussion no. 76), a number of other Jian bowls have short inscriptions on their bases, incised into the moist clay after the bowl had been turned and the footring cut. Such inscriptions usually include a single character,

often a number, though examples with such sur-

names as Liu, Wu, Huang, Li, and He are well-

recorded, as are those with such designations as da [large], zhong [medium], zheng [standard], and cha [tea]."" The exact significance of the inscriptions is unknown, although they are assumed to be potters’ marks relating to the operation of the kilns, the ownership of individual pieces, or the distribution of the wares after firing. The designations of “standard,” “medium,” and “large” apparently have nothing to do with the bowls on which they appear, as bowls of exactly the same size and shape often have different marks; Plumer has suggested that such inscriptions might refer to a particular kiln or to the position

within a kiln where the bowls were to be placed for firing.’~ Such marks are always crudely written and are thus sometimes difficult, even impossible, to de-

cipher. The inscription on this bow] is unusual in claiming two characters. Reading sanshi, the upper character is an abbreviation for “thirty,” which, in formal style, is written with two characters, “three” and

“ten.” The second character in this inscription is so poorly written that its exact reading is uncertain, but it could be liu [six], jiu [nine], or da [large]; the characters for those words are superficially similar and they all occur on archaeologically attested bowls and sherds. The brush-written inscription on the side wall reads Shang zhaiji and translates “Upper house record”; its date and meaning remain unknown. The precise dating of Jian ware awaits further study based on the results of additional excavations at the kiln sites. Following the practice of Fujio Koyama (1900-1975), a Japanese specialist in Chinese ceramics, it has been customary until recently to attribute all Jian tea bowls to the Southern Song, arbitrarily assigning them to the twelfth- to thirteenthcentury period. The mentions of Jian bowls in tenthcentury literature and the numerous comments on their virtues in that of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, necessitate a reappraisal of conventional dating schemes; so, too, do the discoveries of

tenth- and eleventh-century coins and other Northern Song-period artifacts alongside black-glazed sherds in excavations at the Jian kiln sites.’3 It is thus now generally assumed that at least some of the bowls formerly attributed to the Southern Song must have been produced in the late Northern Song. At

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed

Ceramics

211

the same time, the discovery at the Luhuaping kiln site of a saggar fragment with an incised date corresponding to 1142 reveals that production of Jian ware continued there into the Southern Song.'* The 1971 excavation of two Jian bowls with hare’s-fur markings from the 1195-dated tomb of Zhang Tongzhi and his wife indicates that such bowls continued to be treasured through the twelfth century,'> as the recovery of numerous Jian tea bowls from the remains of the Sinan ship off the southwest coast of Korea indicates that production continued into the early fourteenth century.'® As archaeologists working at the kiln sites note, the potters who made Jian ware worked in an extremely conservative manner, pro-

134; Chdéng Yangmo, Kankoku Shin’an kaitei ibutsu: Ken-

san to kokuyiiwan, p. 6, fig. 1; Li Dejin, Jiang Zhongyi, and Guan Jiakun, “Chaoxian Xinan haidi chenchuanzhong di Zhongguo ciqi” [Chinese Ceramics from the Sunken Ship (off the Coast of) Sinan, Korea], Kaogu xuebao 2 (1979): pl. 14, fig. 3.

See Chadé shirydkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, pp. 42-79, figs. 1-72; related wares from other kilns often have lighter bodies; compare pp. 80-84, figs. 74-83; 86-100, figs. LA

ay =107.

See quotes in Feng, “Cong wenxian kan Tang Song yilai yincha fengshang ji taoci chaju di yanbian,” pp. 10-11.

CO

~

ducing bowls in the same shapes, sizes, and decora-

tive styles year after year, decade after decade, so that patterns of stylistic evolution and development are not yet evident.'7 Even though their use waned at the imperial court in the second half of the twelfth century, Jian tea bowls remained popular among devotees of tea outside the court in Southern Song times. In addition, as Chinese-style tea customs and conventions spread abroad, such bowls found an increasingly large market in Japan in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, ensuring continued activity at the Jian kilns well into the Yuan dynasty (see essay by Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere in this catalogue).

di xin faxian,” p. 96, figs. 1, 3. The first-named source

identifies the decoration on the new-found bowls as

“partridge-feather mottles” (zhegu ban); the second source identifies it as “pearl mottles” (zhenzhu ban). The second

1994. A specialist in Korean ceramics and in the materials

source seems the more believable, especially since pure white jade was prized during the Northern Song.

\O

off the coast of Sinan, Korea, in the early 1320s, Chong IO

that mentioned, see Chéng Yangmo, Kankoku Shin’an

kaitei ibutsu: Kensan to kokuyiiwan [Relics from the Sea Floor at Sinan, Korea: Jian Tea Bowls and Black-Glazed

to

Analytical tests performed in the Harvard University Art Museums Center for Conservation and Technical Studies (now the Straus Conservation Center) in the fall of 1993 determined that the metal band on this tea bowl is made of tin. The tests were carried out by graduate students Vivina Rhee and Ellen Rhinard as part of a project focusing on the metal bands affixed to Chinese ceramics of the Song dynasty.

3 See Munhwa kongbobu, Munhwajae kwannguk [Bureau of Cultural Properties, Ministry of Culture and Information (Republic of Korea)], Sinan haejé yumul [Relics from the Sea Floor at Sinan], vol. 1 (Seoul, 1983), p. 106, fig.

212

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Huizong, Daguan chalun, p. 98. Li Huibing states that all such names merely refer to hare’s-fur bowls. Li Huibing, “Chengguo zhanlanzhong di ciqi” [Achievements of the Ceramics in the Exhibition}, in Li Boqian, Li Huibing, et al., “Kaogu yanjiusuo

sishinian yanjiu chengguo zhanlan bitan” [A Review of the Exhibition Featuring Forty Years of Achievement by

Institute (Kyoto, 1994),

the Institute of Archaeology], Kaogu 1 (1991): 74. I

—_

p. 22, fig. 20 (companion publication to Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyd shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, Chadd shiryOkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan).

The meaning of the term zhuyu is not clear; in the past it was thought to refer to the pearl- or tear-shaped drops of glaze on the lower portion of the exterior, but it is now believed to refer to those newly discovered, black-glazed Jian bowls embellished with a pattern of circular, white spots, particularly since one such bowl has a gongyu tribsho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, p. 61, no. 41; Zeng, “Wenbo jianxun: ‘Jianzhan’

excavated from the remains of the Chinese ship that sank

Bowls], exh. cat., Tea Ceremony

Cai, Chalu, p. 90; also quoted in Song, “‘Jianyao’ diaoEN L, Bs ie

ute mark on its base; see Chadé shiryOkan and Fukken

1 Personal comment to the author in Seoul in September

Yangmo is director of the National Museum of Korea, Seoul. For an example ofa wooden container such as

Oriental Ceramic Society, Iron in the Fire: The Chinese Potters’ Exploration of Iron Oxide Glazes, p. $7, no. $0.

See examples in Chadé shirydkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyd shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, pp. 56, pls. 29-30; 74, pl. 63; 79, pl. 73; 243, figs. I-10; Xiamen

daxue renleixue bowuguan, “Fujian Jianyang Shuji Song Jianyao fajue jianbao,” p. 192; Plumer, Temmoku, pp. 69, pl. 44; 70-71, pls. 45-47; 73-74, pls. 48-49; 79, pl. 52; 75, Chart.

I2

Plumer,

Temmoku, p. 75.

13 Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu,” p. 258. 14 Song, ““‘Jianyao’ diaocha ji,” p. $9.

Is Nanjing shi bowuguan [Nanjing Municipal Museum],

“Jiangpu Huangyueling Nan Song Zhang Tongzhi fugui

mu” [The Southern Song Tomb of Zhang Tongzhi and His Wife at Huangyueling, Jiangpu County, Jiangsu Province],

Wenwu 4 (1973): 60, 64, fig. 11.

16

See references in note 3 above.

17

Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu,” p. 267.

78 CONICAL TEA BOWL WITH LIGHTLY FLARING LIP, BROWN Harez’s-FurR MARKINGS, AND METAL RIM Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide, the lip bound with metal From the kilns at Shuiji, Jianyang county, Fujian province H. §:0-em; Diam.

12,1 cm

University of Michigan Museum of Art, The Margaret Watson Parker Art Collection

[1989/2.104]

This bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which its foot was finished with a knife. Once it had dried, the bowl was dipped in the glaze slurry; following another period of drying, the rim was dipped in a thin solution of iron-bearing slip. The piece was fired night side up, seated in its saggar on a small biscuit-shaped clay cushion; it was finished with a metal band after firing. The conical shape indicates that this bowl was not used in tea competitions, where yankou wan bowls were apparently required (see discussion no. 76). Rather, it was used for the pleasurable consumption of tea, perhaps of the sort flavored with scallions, ginger, jujubes, and other solid ingredients. Like the yankou wan bowl from the Harvard collections (no. 77), this conical pie bowl from the University of Michigan Museum of Art has a wide band of metal, probably tin, around its lip. The exact means by which such foil-thin bands are held in

place remains unknown; traditional sources, how-

ever, frequently state that lacquer was used as an adhesive in ancient times, providing a clue for future laboratory studies. A closely related conical tea bowl in the Cleveland Museum also has a metal band around its rim.' 1 The Cleveland Museum of Art accession number $6.703: see Kleinhenz, Pre-Ming Porcelains in the Chinese Ceramic Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art, pp. 452-53.

vo

78

TEA

BOWL

AND

RUSSET

WITH

INDENTED

HARE’S-FUR

LIP MARKINGS

The walls of this medium-sized conical pie tea bowl expand outward from the small circular foot, then, at an angle about three-quarters of an inch above the foot, begin to ascend at a more steeply inclined pitch, culminating in the lightly flared lip. The short footring has straight walls and a flat bottom; the base is

Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide, the base with a brush-written inscription reading Te

flat and shallow. Thin at the mouth, the walls

H. 6.6 cm; Diam.

thicken as they descend, so that the bowl is heavy for its size. A lustrous dark brown glaze that appears black covers the bowl inside and out, stopping in a thick but relatively even edge at the angle above the foot. Faint hare’s-fur markings in light brown enliven the glaze below the lip on both interior and exterior. The exposed body clay at the foot assumed a purplish brown skin in firing; adhesions on the surface now cause it to appear cocoa-colored. Measuring 0.5 centimeters in width on the exterior and 0.6 centimeters on the interior, the wide metal band that caps the lip is narrower than that on the previous bowl (no. 77).

From the kilns at Shuiji, Jianyang county, Fujian province 12.4 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Dr. Horace Emerson

Campbell

[1940.3]

This large yankou wan bowl’s small, circular foot and lightly indented, vertical lip are connected by steeply sloping walls that show a well-defined, angular cut approximately three-quarters of an inch above the foot. Thin at the lip, the walls thicken as they descend, the added weight at the bottom lending stability to the bowl. The short foot is of standard Jian type, with a flat bottom and straight walls of intermediate thickness; also standard is the flat,

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

213

exceptionally shallow base. Appearing bluish black, a deep brown glaze covers the bowl, stopping in a thick welt at the angle above the foot; the even glaze edge includes one nascent tear that formed, but did not run. Because the molten glaze crawled downward in firing, the lip is unglazed. Stronger on the bowl’s upper portions, a dense pattern of russet hare’s-fur streaks extends from the lip to the glaze edge on the exterior, and to the small, flat floor on the interior. The bowl was wheel-thrown, its foot

and base shaped with a knife. After it had dried, the bowl was dipped in the glaze slurry; following a second period of drying, the bowl’s lip was immersed in the iron-laden slip. The piece was fired right side up, seated in its saggar on a small biscuit-shaped clay cushion. The slip not only caused hare’s-fur markings to form where it settled on the glaze surface, but caused the exposed body clay at the lip to fire rust brown; by contrast, the body clay on the bowl’s unglazed, unslipped lower portion fired a deep purplish brown. At some point an inscription reading Te [Special] was written in brush and ink on the base; its date and significance remain unknown. It is often said that yankou wan bowls were created with steeply pitched walls to make them easy to hold when drinking tea; it is also stated that they were given indented rims to make them comfortable for drinking, the indentation nicely accommodating lips and index fingers alike. In fact, recent research in Northern Song texts on tea suggests that the bowls owe their distinctive shape to the need for a deep bowl in which tea-competition contestants could prepare whipped tea. Emperor Huizong noted in his Daguan chalun that “taste is the most important factor in judging tea; if it is fragrant, sweet, thick, and smooth, the tea is per-

fect.”' In addition to pure spring water, appropriate

214

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

serving bowls, and first-quality white tea finely eround,” perfect tea required proper preparation. In tea competitions, contestants were ranked on the taste and appearance of the tea they prepared, as well as on their skill in preparing it. In making such tea, a small piece was broken from a cake of dried tea and reduced to powder with a metal grinder, after which the powder was strained through a silk sieve to ensure its uniformly fine consistency. A measured amount of powdered tea was then spooned into the warmed tea bowl and a little hot water poured in from a ewer, and the two ingredients were thoroughly combined to form a thick paste. When the paste was ready, more hot water was added and the mixture vigorously whipped to a froth with a bamboo whisk.? In his mid-tenth-century Chalu, Cai Xiang commented: “After mixing, the very best tea should appear pure white, and it should leave no residue on the bowl’s interior. In Jian’an-style tea contests, the first tea to [separate and] leave traces of residue loses; the tea that stays well-mixed the longest wins.’”* After noting that tea looks its best in Jian bowls with hare’s-fur streaks or with pearl-jade mottles,

Huizong further remarked

Tea bowls should be deep and relatively wide at the bottom. If the bottom is deep, then it is easy to mix the tea so that it appears milky white; if it is wide, then it is easy to whip the tea. In measuring the tea powder, it is necessary to consider the

bowl’s size. If the bow] 1s tall and the tea too little, then the color will be lost; if the bowl is small and the tea too much, then not enough hot water can be added. If the tea bow] is warmed, then it will

easily preserve the fragrance and taste.”

The recorded comments of Northern Song connoisseurs indicate that tea bowls were designed as much to showcase the frothy, milky white tea as to facilitate its preparation. Hare’s-fur-streaked black glazes were desired because they showed the tea to best advantage, while wide-bottomed bowls were preferred because they most easily accommodated the bamboo whisk used for whipping the tea. In addition, the thick walls of Jian bowls preserved the tea’s warmth better than did the thin walls of bowls made in the north (compare nos. 14-15, 34, 36).

Zeng Fan has observed that the lips of the yankou wan bowls used in tea competitions were probably indented not to facilitate holding the bowl or drinking from it, but to create the low-relief ridge that encircles the interior approximately 1.0 to 1.5 centimeters below the rim. Quoting from an article by Xue Qiao, Zeng states that the ridge assisted not only

in gauging the amount of water to pour into the bowl, but in preventing the swirling tea from splashing out as it was whisked.° With its glaze appearing more russet than black, this bowl from the Harvard collections exemplifies the type of Jian bowl most commonly encountered today. Although literati and members of the Northern Song court would doubtless have found it too

russet for their taste, the bowl nevertheless embodies

all the characteristics of shape that were prized in yankou wan tea bowls. A related bowl recovered at the Luhuaping kiln site in 1960 has been assigned to the late Northern Song period,’ as has the fragment of a related bowl _

Huizong, Daguan chalun, p. 101.

i)

excavated from the Dalu Houmen kiln site in 1992.° Leaf buds, rather than opened leaves, were used for tea of

the highest quality. Since the buds had not yet opened, the tiny leaves had not been exposed to light, so they contained little, if any, chlorophyll; the leaves were thus white instead of green. Emperor Huizong comments on the need to pick such leaf buds early in the morning before dawn in his Daguan chalun; Huizong, Daguan chalun, Pp- 95-96. 3 Cai, Chalu, p. 89; Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu,” p. 264.

4 Cai, Chalu, p. 89.

s Huizong, Daguan chalun, p. 98. 6 Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu,” p. 264. 7 Chado shiryOkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyd shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, pp. 48, pl. 10; 344,

no. 10.

8 Ibid., pp. 69, pl. 53; 348, no. $3.

8O LARGE AND

TEA

BOWL

RUSSET

WITH

FLARING

HARE’S-FUR

LIP

MARKINGS

Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide From the kilns at Shuiyji, Jianyang county, Fujian province H. 7.9 cm; Diam.

18.4 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane Fund for the

Acquisition of Oriental Art

[1995.62]

Resting on a small circular foot, this large, trumpet-

mouthed pie tea bowl has slanting walls that culminate in the dramatically flared lip. A subtly angled change of profile occurs approximately one-half inch above the foot: below the angle the walls ascend somewhat more gently; above it they rise more steeply. The short footring has straight walls and a

flat bottom; the base is flat and shallow. The walls

thicken as they descend from the relatively thin lip, so that the bowl is heavy and stable. Appearing bluish black, a dark brown glaze covers the bowl inside and out, excepting only the lowest portion of the exterior; although portions of the glaze stopped at the angle above the foot, seven long tears ran to the footring, where they pooled. More emphatic on the bowl’s upper portions, a dense pattern of russet hare’s-fur markings enlivens the glaze, extending to the flat, circular floor on the interior and to the glaze edge on the exterior. The bowl was thrown on the potter’s wheel, after which the foot and base were

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

215

(Above, left) Detail, no. 80. (Above, right) Firing Cushion for a Tea Bowl. Northern to Southern Song period, 12th-13th century; coarse, reddish buff firing clay; from the Jian kilns at Shuiji, Jianyang county, Fujian province. H.5.1 cm; W.5.0 cm. Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums. Gift of James M. Plumer [1942.137].

cut with a knife. Once it had fully dried, the bowl was dipped into the glaze slurry; after another period of drying, the bowl’s lip was immersed in an ironrich slip. The piece was fired right side up, seated in its saggar on a small biscuit-shaped clay firing cushion. The slip not only caused the hare’s-fur markings to form where it settled on the glaze surface, but caused the exposed body clay on the underside of the lip to fire rust brown; by contrast, the body clay on the bowl’s unglazed, unslipped lower portion fired a deep purplish brown. The glaze that pooled around the foot doubtless fused the bowl to its firing cushion, as indicated by the adhesion of fired light gray clay on one portion of the footring’s exterior; the bottom of the adhesion has been lightly filed, as have the bottoms of the numerous beads of glaze that formed around the edge of the footring. Jian tea bowls are usually fully glazed, except for the lower portion of the exterior; because gravity pulls the melting glaze downward in firing, the body clay is sometimes exposed at the lip, even though it was initially coated with glaze. Since iron-bearing slip was applied over the raw glaze at the lip to create the hare’s-fur markings, the body clay exposed at the rim usually fires rust brown; lacking a slip coating, the body clay exposed at the foot usually fires purplish brown, though medium gray also occurs (compare no. 77). Fired between 1250 and 1350 degrees Celsius, the

thickly applied clay-and-ash glazes used at the Jian kilns were prone to running and to separating into immiscible glass as they melted,’ a signal characteristic of lime-ash glazes when subjected to high temperatures.” In an attempt to control the flow of the

216

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

melting glaze, the potters at the Jian kilns shaped their bowls with an angled change of profile approximately one-half to three-quarters of an inch above the foot; because the walls are less steeply pitched below the angle, the glaze tends to stop at the angle in a thick roll, or welt. In many cases, the glaze stopped where intended in an even edge. In other cases, the melting glaze partially defied attempts to arrest its flow, with one or two thick teardrops running onto the otherwise unglazed lower portion. In yet other cases, including the present bowl, the quantity of descending glaze overwhelmed all attempts to control its flow, first halting at the angle and then running in numerous thick tears to the foot. Though prized today, this handsome bowl was no doubt considered a waster at the time of manufacture, since the tears of

glaze not only ran to the foot, but pooled there, fusing a portion of the firing cushion to the footring. Tea bowls boasting a thickened but relatively even lower glaze edge with one or two wellpositioned tears (lalei hen) extending partway to the foot are considered especially comely today. The use of firing cushions (dianbing) at the Jian kilns suggests that the potters may have tried not only to encourage the formation of such glaze tears, but to determine their placement as well. Such control may indicate that glaze tears were appreciated in Song times, or it may merely represent a practical and efficient means of restraining the glaze from running onto the foot, where it could fuse bowl and saggar, thereby result-

ing in loss of the bowl.°

Resembling a small cookie or biscuit, firing cushions are thick, circular disks of coarse clay that were placed on the floor of the saggar as a bed on which

to seat the tea bowl.* Set in place while still moist, the firing cushion was custom-fitted to the bowl as the footring was lightly pressed into its clay; each firing cushion thus bears the intaglio impression of the footring of the bowl it supported, along with the murror-reversed, thread-relief impression of any incised or stamped inscription on the bowl’s base. Once the firing cushion had dried, it held the bowl in the precise position it had been placed in the saggar. Apart from holding the bowl in place, the function of the firing cushion, whose use was limited almost exclusively to the Jian kilns, remains obscure, but it was most likely to encourage the melting glaze to form tears at specific points.> Careful inspection reveals that the floor of a fired Jian bowl is seldom flat; in fact, it is virtually always lightly tilted, indicating that the bowl was set into its saggar at a slight angle, one side pressed more firmly into the moist clay of the firing cushion than the other. As it

melted, some of the glaze on the bowl’s interior

e

pooled on the tilted floor, more thickly on the lower side. If the bowl’s exterior sports just one or two glaze tears, they are almost always on the side of the bowl that was set slightly lower during firing, that is, on the same side that shows a thicker pooling of glaze on the floor. While it was doubtless an unwanted consequence, the slightly angled floor was probably considered a small price to pay for a firing technique that granted at least a modicum of control over the formation and placement of the glaze teardrops. Another large, trumpet-mouthed tea bowl with hare’s-fur glaze is in the Cleveland Museum.° The Harvard collection includes a second large, conical Jian tea bowl with trumpet mouth; although it does not stand quite as tall as this one, nor does its mouth flare quite as dramatically, the bowl has a black glaze with an even lower edge and with slight hare’s-fur markings.’ Oniental Ceramic Society, Iron in the Fire: The Chinese Potters’ Exploration of Iron Oxide Glazes, p. 14.

oo

2 Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu,” pp. 259-60, 265-67. For examples of conglutinated bowls, firing cushions, and saggars, see Plumer, Temmoku, pp. 46, no. 28; 48—49, nos.

30, 32.

4 For examples of saggars, see ibid., p. 44, no. 26; for examples of firing cushions, see ibid., p. 47, no. 29; Chadé

shiryOkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, pp. 79, pl. 73; 243, no. 73. 5 See discussion in Plumer,

Temmoku, pp. 45, 47, 53.

6 The Cleveland Museum

of Art accession number 48.206;

see Sherman E. Lee, Tea Taste in Japanese Art, exh. cat.,

Asia House Gallery, The Asia Society (New York, 1963), pp. 23, 96, no. 9; Kleinhenz, Pre-Ming Porcelains in the

Chinese Ceramic Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art, Pp. 450-SI. 7 Unpublished; Harvard University Art Museums accession number

1942.185.433.

8 I LARGE SILVERY

TEA

BOWL

BROWN

WITH

FLARING

HaARE’S-FUR

LIP

AND

MARKINGS

Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide From the kilns at Shuyi, Jianyang county, Fujian province H. 7.6 cm; Diam.

16.8 cm

Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr.

[103]

This large pie tea bowl has flaring walls that expand from the small, circular foot, ascend steeply from an angle approximately three-quarters of an inch above the foot, and then culminate in the trumpet mouth. Relatively thin at the lip, the walls thicken as they descend, so that the bowl is both heavy and stable. The short foot has a flat bottom and straight, vertical walls of intermediate thickness; the very shallow base is flat. Interior and exterior boast a dark brown glaze that appears black and that stops in a thick welt at the angled change of profile above the foot. A dense pattern of silvery brown hare’s-fur markings embellishes the bowl, extending to the even glaze edge on the outside and to the flat—actually, slightly tilted —circular floor on the interior. The body clay exposed at the foot fired a dark purplish brown. This bowl was wheel-thrown, after which foot and base were neatly trimmed with a knife. Once it had dried, the bowl

was dipped in the glaze slurry; following another period of drying, its lip was immersed in a slip laden with iron oxides, which caused the hare’s-fur pattern to form as it crawled downward on the glaze surface in firing. The bow] was fired right side up, seated in a saggar on its firing cushion.

Although both yankou wan and conical pie tea

bowls were made in small, medium, and large sizes,

large pie bowls have always been rare, even at the time of manufacture. Among the 980 Jian tea bowls recovered in the 1960 excavations at Luhuaping, for example, only three were large pie bowls; the remaining 977 bowls included 213 medium-sized pie bowls, 268 large yankou wan bowls, 30 medium-sized

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

217

yankou The

wan bowls,

excavation

and 466 small yankou

wan bowls.

report characterized the average sizes

82

as follows:'

TEA

Pie bowls Large Medium

BROWN

Yankou

H. 8.9 cm H. 6.5 cm

Diam. Diam.

18.2 cm 12.0-13.0 cm

wan bowls

Large Fhe Fuh. CH Medium = _H. 6.3 cm Small H. 4.0-5.0cm PROVENANCE:

Mme.

Diam. 12.8 cm Diam. 10.0 cm Diam. 9.0 cm

WITH

INDENTED

HARE’S-FUR

LIP

AND

SILVERY

MARKINGS

Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide, the lip banded with metal From the kilns at Shuiji, Jianyang county, Fujian province H. 6.8 cm; Diam

12.9 cm

Collection of Diane H. Schafer

Ramé

~

—~

4

4

PUBLISHED: China Institute in America, Selections of Chinese Art from Private Collections in the Metropolitan Area, exh. cat., China House Gallery, China Institute in America (New York, 1966), pp. 32-33, no. $0. 1 Xiamen

BOWL

daxue renleixue bowuguan,

“Fujian Jianyang

Shuiji Song Jianyao fajue jianbao,” pp. 191-92.

The walls of this large yankou wan tea bowl expand from the small, circular foot, beginning their steep ascent to the lightly indented, vertical lip at an angle approximately one-half inch above the foot. Thin at the rim, the walls thicken as they descend, so the relatively heavy bowl has a low-set center of gravity. Of standard Jian type, the short footring has a flat bottom and straight walls of intermediate thickness;

also of standard type, the base is both flat and shallow. A dark brown glaze that appears black coats the

bowl inside and out, excluding the foot and base. Al-

though the angled change of profile arrested its flow

218

Hare’s Fur,

Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

on one side, the glaze ran to the foot in two thick tears on the other; the thick welt at the glaze’s lower edge is thus irregularly configured. Denser at the mouth, a pattern of silvery brown hare’s-fur markings extends to the glaze edge on the exterior and to the small, circular, lightly tilted floor on the interior. The exposed body clay on the bowl’s lower exterior assumed a dark purplish brown skin in firing. The

bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, after which

its foot and base were shaped with a knife. Following a period of drying, the bowl was dipped in the glaze slurry; once it had dried again, its lip was immersed in an iron-bearing slip, which caused the hare’s-fur streaks to form in the kiln. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar, seated on a clay firing cushion. Depending upon the amount of slip applied to the surface of the glaze, the hare’s-fur patterns on Jian

bowls can range from subtle (nos. 77, 78) to em-

phatic (nos. 79, 80); depending upon the atmospheric conditions in the kiln and the chemical composition of the slip, the markings may appear brown (no. 76), yellow (nos. 77, 78), russet (nos. 79, 80), silvery

brown (nos. 81-82), or even silver (no. 83). Those bowls with silver or silvery brown markings often show an undercurrent of lavender, as revealed by this handsome bowl from the Diane H. Schafer Collection and by the following one from the Metropolitan Museum

(no. 83). Color designations are used in

patterns that appear in Song literature—but whose exact meanings are now lost—were used to categorize such variations (see discussion no. 77). Kiln temperature and firing time determine the

glaze’s luster; if properly fired, the glaze will be lus-

trous and reflective, but if underfired—that is, if the

temperature is too low or the firing time too short— it will be matte. The amount of slip also influences the glaze’s finish; a generous application will result in a dense hare’s-fur pattern (no. 80), but an overly abundant one may so saturate the glaze with iron that the slip remains on the surface as a streaked skin (no. 79), akin in appearance and physical characteristics to the russet-skinned glazes made in northern China (compare nos. 12-15, 20, 24-27). If the firing time 1s sufficiently long and if the glaze is not iron-saturated, the glaze will absorb the slip, in which case, the glaze will be lustrous and the hare’s-fur markings will appear to be within the glaze. PROVENANCE: Mrs. Agnes Hellner;J. Hellner PUBLISHED: Direzione Belle Arti del Comune di Venezia [Director of Fine Arts, City of Venice], Mostra d’Arte Cinése: Séttimo Centenario di Marco Polo [Exhibition of Chinese Art: The Seven Hundredth Anniversary of Marco Polo], exh. cat., Ducal Palace (Venice, 1954), p. 139, no. 495; Gyllens-

vard, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, n.p., monochrome pl. 152.

Chinese literature today to differentiate the patterns,

as they are in Western writings on Chinese ceramics;

it is assumed that the various names for the hare’s-fur

8 3 TEA

BOWL

BROWNISH

WITH SILVER

INDENTED

LIP

HARE’S-FUR

AND MARKINGS

Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide From the kilns at Shui, Jianyang county, Fujian province H.. 67 Gm

Dia.

122

cm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New

Fund, 1919

82

=[19.55.1]

York, Rogers

Steeply canted walls connect this large, classically shaped yankou wan tea bowl’s small, circular foot to its wide, vertical lip; lightly indented, the lip shows the raised ridge on its interior that is a feature of yankou wan bowls. An angled change of profile occurs approximately three-quarters of an inch above the foot, the walls rising more steeply above the angle, more gently below. Because the walls thicken as they descend, the bowl is heavy and stable. The footring has a flat bottom and straight walls of intermediate

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

219

thickness; the base is characteristically shallow and flat. Appearing black, a dark brown glaze covers the bowl inside and out, stopping in a thickened and relatively even edge at the angle above the foot; one thick glaze tear ran to the footring, while two others hover just below the glaze edge. A dense pattern of slightly iridescent, brownish silver hare’s-fur streaks embellishes the glaze, extending to the small, circular, lightly tilted floor on the interior and to the glaze edge on the exterior. Since the molten glaze crawled downward in firing, the lip is unglazed. The bowl was wheel-thrown, after which the foot and base were trimmed with a knife. Once it had dried, the

bowl was dipped in the glaze slurry; after another period of drying, its lip was immersed in the ironladen slip. The bowl was fired nght side up in its saggar, seated on a clay firing cushion. The slip not only caused hare’s-fur markings to form where it settled on the glaze surface, but caused the exposed body clay at the lip to assume a slightly indescent skin; by contrast, the body clay on the bowl’s unglazed, unslipped lower portion fired a dark gray. Muted gold pigment applied to one area of the bowl conceals repairs to a body crack. The various hare’s-fur patterns owe their differences in color both to the specific oxides of iron that form in firing and to the type of crystals that develop as the glaze cools. In general, yellow and brown patterns result from the formation of FexO3, whereas silvery and iridescent patterns result from the formation of Fe3;O4; in many cases, both oxides form, so

220

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

P a,

Copyright © 1995 by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

; oe

iF

the pattern may appear silvery brown.’ Glazes with silver hare’s-fur streaks—1.e., those with a predominance of Fe,O4—are closely related chemically to oil-spot glazes. 1 Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu,” p. 266.

$4 TEA BOWL WITH INDENTED LIP AND WITH DECORATION OF STYLIZED PLUM BLOSSOMS AGAINST A GROUND OF BROWN HarRe’s-FuR MARKINGS Southern Song period, 12th—-13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze,

the decoration painted in overglaze iron oxide, the mm

banded with metal From the kilns at Shuji, Jianyang county, Fujian province H. 7.3 cm; Diam.

12.4 cm

The Asia Society, New

York, Mr. and Mrs. John D.

Rockefeller 3rd Collection

[1979.145]

The walls of this large yankou wan tea bowl expand from the small, circular foot, ascending more steeply above the angular change of profile that occurs approximately three-quarters of an inch above the foot. Lightly indented, the vertical lip has a ridge on its interior, about one-quarter inch below the rim. The bowl is heavy and stable because its walls thicken as

they descend. The flat-bottomed footring has vertical

bamboo, which remain green the year round, term-

covers the bowl inside and out stops at the angle above the foot in a thickened, undulating edge that includes several nascent tears. A russet hare’s-fur pattern rings the bowl, emphatic at the lip but subtle on the bowl’s lower half. Set against the hare’s-fur ground on the interior walls are fifteen stylized plum

nighttime skies, since the plum is especially esteemed

walls of intermediate thickness; the base is shallow and flat. Appearing black, the dark brown glaze that

blossoms, with a sixteenth on the floor; each blossom

comprises one central dot surrounded by five more, evenly spaced and identical, representing petals. The exposed body clay on the bowl’s unglazed lower

portion fired purplish buff. The bowl was turned on

the potter’s wheel, after which its foot and base were shaped with a knife; once it had dried, the bowl was dipped in the glaze slurry. Following a second period of drying, the bowl’s lip was immersed in iron-bearing slip, after which the stylized blossoms were touched on in the same slip, probably with a brush, possibly with a fingertip. The bow] was fired right side up in its saggar, seated on a clay firing cushion. Celebrated in poetry since remote antiquity, the wild plum (Prunus mume) emerged as a distinct genre of Chinese painting in the Southern Song period, when its blossoms were often represented with five circular petals." The most beloved of all flowers in traditional China, the meihua, or plum, blooms in

February, so it naturally stands both for the first month of the lunar year and for winter, with its promise of rejuvenation to follow.* Because the flowers are white and because they appear before the tree dons its leaves, Chinese regard the plum as a symbol of purity and chastity. Seeing virtue in its ability to bloom while snow covers its branches, Confucians claim the plum as a symbol of strength in the face of adversity, often pairing it with pine and

Photo: Lynton Gardiner

54

ing the trio Sanyou suihan, or the “Three Friends of Winter.”’ Others see the delicate blossoms as an emblem of feminine beauty and the rough bark as an emblem of the humble scholar. The dark glaze against which the blossoms are set could stand for cloudy February skies, since the plum is particularly

revered when paired with snow, or for darkened

in moonlight.?

This bowl from The Asia Society’s Rockefeller Collection 1s unique among Jian wares in having representational, albeit stylized, decoration painted in overglaze slip. Save those bowls with decoration painted in overglaze gold after firing (see no. 86), Jian tea bowls virtually always are undecorated, or are enlivened with such nonrepresentational designs as hare’s-fur, partridge-feather, or oil-spot markings. The immediate source of inspiration for this bowl’s unusual decoration might have been a standard Cizhou vessel with floral decoration painted in dots of brown glaze‘ or, perhaps more likely, a Jizhou ceramic piece with stylized plum decor; in fact, a Jizhou pillow now in the Jiangxi Provincial Museum has an overall pattern of dotted plum blossoms painted in russet slip that is remarkably similar to that on this Jian tea bowl.° Some authors state that the hare’s-fur and oil-spot markings in Jian glazes formed of their own accord as the various iron compounds crystallized after segregating themselves from the glaze matrix during firing; other authors state the markings arose from a coating of slip applied to the body before the application of the glaze. This rare bow] clearly reveals that Jian potters created their decorative markings with overglaze slip, since the slip-painted plum blossoms are identical in color to the hare’s-fur streaks. By placing the slip on the surface of the glaze, the potters were able to control the density of the markings and to determine whether they would extend to the lower glaze edge or merely embellish the rim. Unique today, this handsome bowl was probably made as part ofa set of decorated tea bowls. The unusual decoration suggests that it might have been made on commission for a particular client, or to compete in the open market with decorated wares from the Cizhou or Jizhou kilns. PROVENANCE: Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection PUBLISHED:

Lee, Asian Art, pp. 46 and 96, no. 29; Mowry,

Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, p. 61; Mowry, “The Sophistication of Song Dynasty

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

221

Ceramics,” pp. 401-2, fig. 15; Leidy, Treasures of Asian Art, p.

m

163-64, 304, fig. 156.

See Maggie Bickford et al., Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice: The Flowering Plum in Chinese Art, exh. cat., Yale University

Art Gallery (New Haven, 1985), pp. 16, fig. 1; $4-s5, tu

figs. 14-15; $6, fig. 16.

One of the “flowers of the four seasons,” the plum symbolizes winter, standing alongside the peony, lotus, and chrysanthemum, which symbolize spring, summer, and fall, respectively.

3 For information on the plum in Chinese art, see Bickford, Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice: The Flowering Plum in

Chinese Art.

4 See Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China, pp. 112-13, no. 44 and figs. 114-16.

s See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe [The People’s Fine Arts Press of Shanghai, China], ed., Jizhouyao [Jizhou Ware], Zhongguo taoci quanji [A Compendium of Chinese Ceramics] series, vol. 15 (Kyoto, 1986), n-p.,

no. 101.

85 LARGE AND

TEA SILVER

BOWL

WITH

OIL-SPOT

FLARING

LIP

MARKINGS

Northern to Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jian ware: dark gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the markings in iron oxide From the kilns at Shuiji, Jianyang county, Fujian province FL. Fen,

Diam.

Toc tai

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Avery Brundage Collection [B60 P1718]

The walls of this large, conical pie tea bowl ascend from the short, circular foot to the rim, where they

culminate in the trumpet mouth; the walls rise more steeply above the subtly angled change of profile that occurs about three-quarters of an inch above the foot, more gently below it. Thin at the lip, the walls thicken as they descend, so the bowl is heavy and stable. The short footring has a flat bottom and verti-

cal walls of intermediate thickness; the shallow base is

flat. A dark brown glaze that appears black covers the bowl inside and out, stopping 1n an even, thickened edge at the angle above the foot. Denser on the interior than on the exterior, a pattern of small, silvery oil spots enlivens the glaze, extending across the small, circular, lightly tilted floor on the interior. The bowl was wheel-turned, after which its foot and base were trimmed with a knife. Once it had dried, the

222

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

piece was dipped in the glaze slurry; it may have been immersed again in a thin slurry of iron-oxideladen slip following another period of drying. The unglazed body clay on the bowl’s lower portion fired a deep purplish brown. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar, standing on a clay firing cushion. Although bowls with hare’s-fur markings are the best-known, the most celebrated Jian bowls—at least in Japan, where they have long been prized—are those with oil-spot and “kiln-transformed” glazes. Such glazes are not mentioned in literature of the Song period, so the names used at the time to designate them remain unknown." Oil-spot glazes are black with silvery markings, sometimes circular, sometimes flecked; Chinese authors now often call

them youdiyou (oil-spot glazes), employing the Chinese reading of the term yuteki that Japanese connoisseurs have used for such pieces at least since the first half of the fifteenth century.” The so-called oil spots formed when oxides of iron segregated themselves from the iron-saturated glaze during firing and crystallized on the surface during cooling. Oil-spot glazes are closely related to those with silver hare’s-fur markings (compare no. 84); in oil-spot glazes, the oxides crystallize as dots; in silver hare’s-fur glazes, they crystallize as streaks, due to the downward movement of the glaze during firing. Rarest of all, “kiln-transformed” bowls have black glazes enlivened with silvery mottles of varying size within a steel-blue haze, the mottles sometimes with hints of red, green, and amber;? only three such bowls are

known today, all of which are in Japanese collections.* The term ydhen (in one variant form or another) has been used in Japan for such pieces at least since the first half of the fifteenth century;° lacking a traditional name for such glazes, the Chinese have borrowed the Japanese name, which they read as yaobian. It is generally assumed that “kiln-transformed” bowls were intended to emerge from the firing chamber with hare’s-fur or oil-spot glazes;° unusual conditions in the kiln resulted in the beautiful but unintended markings, which explains the name. Although the chemistry of oil-spot glazes is well understood, the exact means by which the oil spots were encouraged to form remains uncertain. It 1s possible that the glaze slurry was saturated with iron oxide, obviating the need for a separate application of iron-bearing slip. Although most Jian bowls with oil-spot glazes show the same distribution of crystalline markings inside and out, a few, such as this

magnificent example from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, exhibit a denser pattern of markings on the interior than on the exterior; while kiln conditions might explain the differing densities, the

use of a thin wash of overglaze slip—applied more heavily on the interior—could also explain them. Resolution of this matter awaits further laboratory research. Excavations conducted at the Luhuaping kiln site at Shuyi between

1989 and 1992 yielded sherds with

oil-spot and kiln-transformed glazes,’ establishing that tea bowls with such glazes were definitely made there in Song times.* Because earlier excavations at Shuiyi had not yielded evidence of such glazes, scholars had begun to doubt that such bowls— especially those with kiln-transformed glazes—were made at the Jian kilns, speculating that they might have come from other kilns that produced close imitations of

d’Argencé, Chinese Treasures from the Avery Brundage Collection, exh. cat. (Tokyo,

Oaks, Cal., 1979), p. 67, fig. 3-23; Hong Kong Museum

Art, Gems of Chinese Art from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Avery Brundage Collection, exh. cat., Hong Kong Museum

Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.;"° registered

as an important cultural property, another is in a Japanese collection."

PUBLISHED: d’Argencé, Chinese Ceramics in the Avery Brundage Collection, pp. 102-3, pl. 46a; René-Yvon Lefebvre

1983), p. 73.

sometimes used in English thus comes from Japanese; the

term has been introduced to China only in comparatively recent times. The Japanese had adopted the name temmoku for such wares by the early fifteenth century, as indicated by the term’s use in a book entitled Zenrin koka, which was written between

Temmoku, p. 89.

1394 and 1428. Koyama,

2 Used to describe a black-glazed tea bow] with silver spots, the term yuteki appears in a fifteenth-century Japanese diary entitled Mansaijunko nikki; quoted in Akanuma Taka, “Kensan to temmoku” [Jian Ware and Temmoku] in Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyd shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku:

Tokubetsuten, Chadd

shiryOkan and Fukken shéo hakubutsukan, pp. 181-82. Co

(compare nos. 43, 44, 46). It is possible that oil-spot

glazes originated at the Jian kilns, and were then imitated at other kilns as Jian ware won national renown. Large tea bowls of conical pie shape with oil-spot glazes are exceptionally rare. A related bowl is in the

of Art (Hong Kong,

of

1 Dark-glazed wares appropriate for the tea ceremony are collectively known in Japanese as temmoku; Chinese wares are distinguished as Karamono temmoku and Japanese wares as Wamono temmoku. The name temmoku that is

Jian ware, such as those at Tushan, near Chongging,

in Sichuan province, where sherds with kilntransformed glazes have been found.? Although it is sometimes said that vessels with oilspot glazes were made more for export to Japan than for use in China, the large number of kilns producing such glazes during the Song and Jin suggests that they were in fact used and appreciated in China

1970), p. 98, pl. 73; Charlotte F.

Speight, Hands in Clay: An Introduction to Ceramics (Sherman

For information

on kiln-transformed

bowls,

see Kazuo

Yamasaki and Fujio Koyama, “The Yohen Temmoku

Bowls,” Oriental Art, vol. 13, no. 2 (Summer 1967): 89— 93; Chen Xianqiu, Chen Shiping, and Huang Ruifu,

“Jian Temmoku Wares for Tribute: Part 1: Their Social

and Cultural Intensions,” in Proceedings of 1989 Interna-

tional Symposium on Ancient Ceramics, eds. Li Jiazhi and Chen Xiangiu (Shanghai, 1989), pp. 80-86; Chen Xianqiu, Chen Shiping, and Huang Ruifu, “Jian Temmoku Wares for Tribute: Part 2: Their Intensions of Natural

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

223

Sciences,” in Proceedings of 1989 International Symposium on Ancient Ceramics, pp. 87-93. 4 The three ydhen bowls are in the Seikadd Foundation Museum, Tokyo; the Fujita Museum, Osaka; and the

A

Ryitk6-in, a sub-temple of Daitoku-ji Temple, Kyoto; see Koyama, Temmoku, n.p., color pls. 3-8. Akanuma,

“Kensan to temmoku,”

p. 181.

6 Ibid.

7 See Chad6 shirySkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyo shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, p. 104, reference plates F, G. 8 Zeng, “Guanyu Jianyao di yanjiu,” p. 258. g Ye Wencheng and Zhang Zhongchun, “Zhongguo gu waixiao taoci 1987 nian xueshu taolunhui jiyao” [A Summary of the 1987 Scholarly Symposium on Ancient Chinese Export Ceramics], Wenwu 9 (1988): 93. 10

Freer Gallery of Art accession number 09.369; see Freer Gallery of Art, The Freer Gallery of Art, vol. 1, China, pp. 174-75, no. 94 and n.p., pl. 94; Koyama, Temmoku,

I

—

p. 107, fig. 38. Koyama,

Temmoku, n.p., pls. 11-12.

86 TEA

BOWL

AND

DECORATION

PURSUING

WITH

INDENTED OF

A

LIP

DRAGON

A FLAMING JEWEL

the bowl’s concave floor. The body clay exposed at the foot fired medium buff gray. This bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel,

after which

the foot

and base were shaped with a knife; following a period of drying, the bowl was immersed in the glaze slurry. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar, seated on a small clay firing cushion. After the bowl’s removal from the kiln, the decoration was painted on its interior, using a fine brush dipped in a paste made of powdered gold mixed with an adhesive; once the gold decoration had dried, the bowl was subjected to a second, low-temperature firing to fuse the gold to the glaze. In the Chinese dualistic yin-yang interpretation of the cosmos, the dragon symbolizes the yang, or male, principle, while the phoenix represents the yin, or female, principle. Associated with water, the auspicious dragon is typically paired with clouds, mist, or rolling waves. The flaming jewel is borrowed from the repertory of Buddhist art, and symbolizes transcendent wisdom; the motif of dragon and flaming jewel combined thus symbolizes the active pursuit of wisdom. A few black-glazed Jian tea bowls without hare’sfur or oil-spot markings exhibit gold designs, probably inspired by russet- and black-glazed Ding bowls with decoration in overglaze gold (see no. 15). Although the visual effect of gold against a dark glaze is similar in Ding and Jian wares, their styles and techniques of decoration differ significantly. In Ding

Southern Song to Yuan period, 13th—early 14th century Jian ware: medium gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration painted in overglaze gold Perhaps from the kilns at Shuyyi, Jianyang county, Fujian province H. 6.2 cm; Diam.

12.6 cm

The Scheinman Collection

[4a]

Expanding from the small, circular foot, the walls of this large yankou wan bowl ascend more steeply above the subtly angled change of profile that appears about three-quarters of an inch above the foot. Because its walls thicken as they descend, the bowl is heavy and its center of gravity is low-set. The short, flat-bottomed footring has vertical walls of intermediate thickness; the base is shallow and flat. Appearing black, a dark brown glaze covers the bowl inside and out, stopping in a relatively even edge at the angle above the foot. Painted in gold, a now much obscured linear design ofa dragon pursuing a flaming jewel amidst clouds emblazons the bowl’s interior walls; outlined in fine gold lines in Old-Song-style script, a single character reading fu (wealth) occupies

224

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

86

ware, the decoration was created by applying cut gold leaf to the glaze surface; in Jian ware, the decoration was painted on the glaze with a fine brush dipped in a solution containing powdered gold. Because the elements of the gold-leaf designs had to be integrally linked for physical support, the designs on Ding ware are arranged in a series of discrete units that incorporate open spaces framed by broad lines of uniform width; the gold designs on Jian bowls, by contrast, often have continuous compositions painted in lines that vary in width from fine to broad. The even thickness of the gold leaf resulted in designs of uniform tonality on Ding vessels; painted with a brush, the modulated lines on Jian bowls vary in tonality, appearing intense where the gold is thick and subtle where it is thin. The closed compositions and the lines of uniform width and tonality impart an air of stiff formality to the designs on Ding ware; the designs on Jian bowls, by contrast, show the freedom and spontaneity that derive from the flexible brush. The subject matter of the designs differs, as well: Ding pieces almost invariably feature formalized floral motifs, while Jian bowls show dragons, auspicious characters,’ and even radiating lines that simulate a hare’s-fur pattern.* The aesthetic associated with the gold designs on Ding bowls resembles that of Song Buddhist paintings with elements worked in cut gold leaf; the aesthetic associated with the gold designs on Jian bowls resembles that of Song Buddhist sutras painted with metallic gold pigment on an indigoblue ground. Those Jian bowls with gold decoration usually have a relatively thin coat of glaze that ends in an even edge at the angled change of profile above the foot. They lack both the thickened glaze edge and the glaze tears of standard Jian ware; they tend to have somewhat lighter body clay; and they show slight differences in the cutting of the foot and base: all of these suggest that they might have been made at a kiln other than those at Shuiji. A related tea bowl in a Japanese collection has four gold characters reading Shou shan fu hai [May you live to be as old as the mountains; may your good fortune be as vast as the sea]; each character appears in a six-lobed cartouche set against a ground of radiating lines.’ The placement of the cartouches against an embellished ground recalls the decoration on the underglaze-slip-painted bottle of Jizhou ware that was recovered from the Chinese merchant ship that sank off the coast of Sinan, Korea, in the early 1320s, suggesting that bowls with decoration painted in gold probably date to the Southern Song period, or even to the Yuan.4

1 See Koyama, Temmoku, n.p., pls. 28-29. 2 See Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the Kwan

Collection, pp. 374-75, no. 169.

3 See Note

1 above.

4 See Munhwa kongbobu, Munhwajae kwanriguk, Sinan haejé yumul, vol. 1, pp. 109-10, figs. 139 a-b.

87 BOWL

WITH

TORTOISESHELL.

GLAZE

Southern Song period, 1r2th—13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown and

transparent amber glazes

From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H.. 6:0 em: Diam.

179 cr

The Scheinman Collection

[A25]

Of generally hemispherical form, this large wan bowl has rounded walls capped by a vertical lip. The thick, flat-bottomed footring has a vertical exterior wall but an angled interior one; the lightly convex base has a distinct point at its center. A ring slightly wider in diameter than the foot defines the bowl’s subtly depressed, flat floor. An opaque, black-coffee brown

glaze covers interior and exterior alike, stopping a

little more than an inch above the foot; a band of

medium brown slip-glaze averaging three-quarters of an inch in width encircles the bowl’s lower portion, appearing below the dark glaze’s lower edge but falling short of the foot. Of varying size, splashes of transparent amber glaze appear within the dark glaze matrix, the pattern more dense on the interior. The bowl’s unglazed lower portion fired reddish buff. This bowl was thrown on the potter’s wheel, probably over a hump mold—as suggested by the depressed floor—after which its foot and base were trimmed with a knife. The exact order and technique of the glazes’ application remain uncertain. The bowl might first have been immersed in the medium brown slip-glaze, the smudges at its edge and the finger impressions on the footring revealing the points where the potter held the bow! during its immersion. Following a period of drying, the bowl might then have been dipped in the dark brown glaze slurry, after which the tortoiseshell effect might have been induced by splashing a paste composed of wood- or bamboo ash and water on the surface. Once it had thoroughly dried, the bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. The combination of light gray stoneware body and dark brown glaze with transparent amber

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

225

87

splashes indicates that this bowl was made at the Jizhou kilns, which were located along the banks of

the Gan River, not far from Yonghe, a market town

near Ji’an, in central Jiangxi province.’ Because the region was known as Jizhou in Five Dynasties and Song times, the humble wares made there have traditionally been called Jizhou ware.* The Yonghe site includes at least twenty-four waste heaps that were associated with the kilns, though the exact number

and location of the actual kilns remain uncertain;* re-

sembling hills, the largest mounds measure more than sixty feet in height and include not only ceramics damaged in firing, but used saggars and other kiln equipment.* Because the heaps have been repeatedly disturbed over the centuries—by natural disasters as well as by treasure hunters scavenging for salvageable pots and by townspeople looking for fired clay fragments with which to pave roads and fill walls—the trial excavations carried out at Yonghe have yielded less information on dating and evolution than have archaeological explorations at other kilns. The number and size of the waste heaps, however, attest to the enormous quantity of ceramics made at the Jizhou kilns and to their long history of production. The recovery of several celadon-glazed, Yue-type sherds at Yonghe has prompted several authors to conclude that the Jizhou kilns perhaps began production as early as the Tang dynasty.” Whenever they were established, the Jizhou kilns were definitely

226

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

active by the Northern Song. The trial excavations carried out in 1974 showed the lowest stratum to be

composed almost entirely of white ware, much of it gingbai-type ware—sugar white porcelain with a transparent, pale blue glaze—similar to that made at Hutian, in northern Jiangxi province, during the Northern Song period.° The upper stratum included white-ware pieces with mold-impressed decoration as well as pieces with unglazed rims, indicating they had been fired upside down using the fushao technique; both characteristics point to influence from the Ding kilns and to a twelfth-century date of manufacture (see discussion nos. 12-14). The upper stratum also boasted a variety of dark-glazed wares along with a number of light-bodied wares with decoration painted in underglaze brown slip,’ assumed to be from the Southern Song period. Although they established that the kilns were definitely active by the Northern Song period, the excavations did not yield evidence that would indicate when the kilns ceased production. The excavation of two Jizhou vessels with underglaze slip-painted floral designs from a 1209-dated tomb at Nanchang, Jiangxi province,” and the recovery at Yonghe of a saggar with an inscription dated to early 1274? indicate that the Jizhou kilns were active throughout the thirteenth century, however. The discovery of Jizhou wares amongst the cargo of the Chinese merchant ship that sank off the coast of Sinan, Korea, in the

early 1320s further indicates that production continued into the fourteenth century,*° contradicting traditional statements that the Jizhou kilns ceased production in the closing years of the Southern Song."!

Feng Xianming states that production at Jizhou persisted not only through the Yuan, but into the late Ming, though he cites no specific evidence." According to Feng Xianming, potters from a number of well-known northern kilns fled to Anhui,

Zhejiang, and Jiangxi provinces in the early twelfth century to escape the turmoil attending the disintegration and collapse of the Northern Song government in the face of invasions by the Jin Tatars."? As they found work in their newly adopted provinces, the potters transmitted northern styles and techniques to the southern kilns, thus explaining the relationships between wares made at the Jizhou kilns and those from the Ding and Cizhou kilns. In fact, Feng comments that the influence of the Cizhou kilns was so strong that the Jizhou kilns might be considered a southern exponent of the Cizhou system.'* While it offers insight into the complex pattern of influences, Feng’s comment should not be taken too literally, as styles and techniques of decoration employed at the Jizhou kilns differ significantly from those utilized at the Cizhou-type kilns. If the Cizhou kilns were the most technically innovative during the Northern Song, the Jizhou kilns succeeded them as the most technically creative during the Southern Song. In addition to producing northern style wares with molded or underglaze slippainted designs, the Jizhou kilns introduced and pioneered new techniques of decoration that resulted in tortoiseshell glazes (nos. 87-92) and in papercut (nos. 96-101), glaze-resist (nos. 102—6), and naturalistic leaf (nos. 107, 108) designs. More than anything else, it is the use of a black-coftee brown glaze manipulated to achieve the desired decorative effect that unites the dark-glazed wares from the Jizhou kilns. Sweeping the land in the early Ming, the newly espoused preference for blue-and-white porcelains made at Jingdezhen eclipsed the taste for Song-style dark-glazed wares, including those made at Yonghe. In assessing the influence of the Jizhou kilns, however, it 1s significant to note that many of the border designs—and even a few of the principal designs— that appear on Jingdezhen blue-and-white wares of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries derive from those on underglaze slip-painted vessels made at

the Jizhou kilns in the thirteenth century."

Called tortoiseshell glazes in English, chocolate brown glazes with amber or buff splashes are termed daimeiwen or daipiwen in Chinese, the reference in both cases being to the shell of the hawksbill, a

warm-water sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) from which the Chinese traditionally harvested the tortoiseshell used in making decorative items. The name appears to be the one used for tortoiseshell glazes in antiquity,'° though the paucity of references to such glazes in Song and Yuan sources renders certainty impossible. An innovation of the Jizhou kilns, the tortoiseshell glaze was not made by kilns in the north, though it was imitated in Guangxi province."7 It numbers among the glazes most frequently encountered on Jizhou wares; many vessels have a coating of tortoiseshell glaze on the exterior, for example, even if relatively few vessels are fully coated inside and out. Specialists disagree on the technique by which the tortoiseshell glaze was created. This author contends that the glaze was most likely created by splashing wood- or bamboo ash on the surface of the dark glaze before firing; the ash would have fostered kiln transmutations in the glaze, those areas receiving the ash firing transparent amber, and those areas lacking ash maturing the anticipated dark brown. This method is akin to that believed to have been used at the Duandian and Huangdao kilns during the Tang dynasty to create the sky blue splashes in their chocolate brown glazes (see nos. 8-11). Experiments have confirmed that ash can cause glazes to run during firing, as it can rob an otherwise opaque, dark glaze of its color, leaving transparent, faintly colored areas, sometimes shot with milky blue streaks (see

nos. 90, 91).

Other scholars have suggested that in creating a tortoiseshell glaze, a transparent amber glaze might first have been splashed onto the vessel, after which the otherwise unglazed piece would have been subjected to a low-temperature firing. Upon removal from the kiln, the vessel would then have been im-

mersed successively in the slip-glaze and dark glaze slurries; the biscuit-fired splashes of amber glaze would have acted as a resist, so that only the completely unglazed areas would have accepted the slip and glaze slurries. After drying, the vessel would have been given a final, high-temperature firing. While this method is technically possible, it is questionable whether or not a method involving the labor and expense of two separate firings would have been used for such a humble ware. Yet other specialists have suggested that the tortoiseshell glaze might have been created by splashing a wax resist on the unglazed vessel, after which the vessel could have been dipped in a dark brown slip and then subjected to a low-temperature firing to fuse the slip and to melt and burn off the wax. Upon removal from the kiln, the vessel would have been

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

227

(Kyoto, 1986), 106-27; Jiang Xuanyi, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di cigi [Jizhou Ceramics: Ceramics with Stenciled Papercut Designs] (Beijing, 1958); Chen Bo-

fully immersed in the amber glaze slurry and then, following a period of drying, placed in a kiln for its final, high-temperature firing. Finished vessels with tortoiseshell glazes present prima facie evidence against this method: if tortoiseshell-glazed vessels had been completely immersed in an amber glaze slurry after a biscuit firing, the glaze on the finished vessels should have an even, homogeneous surface, the amber splashes lacking the distinct edges they typically

[Several Song-Dynasty Jizhou-Ware Ceramics Recovered in Jiangxi Province],

Schafer Collection.’? Four related tortoiseshell-

glazed pan dishes were recovered in the 1981 excavations of a mid- or late-twelfth-century site in Langzhong county, Sichuan province, indicating that the glaze had appeared by the early to mid-Southern

Song period.*° Excavated at the Yonghe site, a basin

with tortoiseshell glaze on its steeply canted cavetto and everted lip has been attributed to the Yuan dynasty, indicating that Chinese archaeologists believe that tortoiseshell glazes with transparent amber markings persisted into the fourteenth century.*' With their depressed, circular floors and tortoiseshell glazes, the dishes unearthed in Langzhong county suggest a Southern Song date for bowls of this type. PUBLISHED:

Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire, p. 83, no. 63.

chou,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 34 (1962): 53-71; Li Keyou, “Shoucang yu jianding— Mantan gutaoci jianding: Jizhou yaoci jianbie” [Collecting and Authenticating—On the Authentication of Ancient Ceramics: The Characteristics of Jizhou Ware], Wenwu tiandi 3 (1995): 43-44; Wang Liying, “Jizhouyao di

zhuangshi yishu” [The Art of Decorating Jizhou Wares], 1)

Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 4 (1983): 17-21.

shu chubanshe [The People’s Fine Arts Press of Shanghai, China], Jizhouyao [Jizhou Ware], Zhongguo taocit quanji [A Compendium of Chinese Cerarmics] series, vol. 15

228

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di cigi, p. 3.

3 Yu, “Jizhouyao,” pp. 107-9.

co

6ON]

Nn

WC

4 Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang

tieyin di ciqi, p. 4.

Ibid. Pps 12=13; Feng et al., Zhongguo taoci shi, p. 270. Ibid. See ibid., p. 250, fig. 61. Ibid., p. 270.

LO

Munhwa kongbobu, Munhwajae kwanriguk, Sinan haej6 yumul, vol. 1, pp. 109-110, figs. 139a—-b; vol. 3 (1985), p. 252, pl. 90, no. 119.

1He

12

Feng et al., Zhongguo taoci shi, p. 270; Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di cigi, p. 64. Feng et al., Zhongguo taoci shi, p. 270.

13 Ibid,, p. 2590. 14 Ibid. This suggestion

now appears in the writings of

more recent Chinese authors; see Liu Liangyou, Song a [Song Ceramics], Zhongguo lidai taoci jianshang [A Survey of Chinese Ceramics] series, vol. 2 (Taipei, 1991).

Ts

Feng et al., Zhongguo taoci shi, p. 251; n.p., color pl. 19; Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, pp. 124-25; John M. Addis, Chinese Ceramics from Datable Tombs (London, 178), > 32, pls. 22a~b.

Feng et al., Zhongguo taoci shi, p. 279. ty

Ibid.

18

See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciqi, n.p., pl. 3s.

19

Unpublished.

20

See Zhang Qiming, “Sichuan Langzhong xian chutu Songdai jiaocang” [A Song-Period Trove Unearthed in Langzhong County, Sichuan],

1 For information on Jizhou ware, see Feng et al., Zhongguo taoci shi, pp. 250-51, 270, 279; Yu Jiadong, “Jizhouyao” [Jizhou Ware], in Zhongguo Shanghai renmin mei-

3 (1975): 49-50; He

the Jizhou Kiln Site], Wenwu cankao ziliao 9 (1953): 88-90; Jan Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-

show. In addition, the dark brown areas on this bowl

and on related vessels sport an opaque chocolate brown glaze, not a coat of transparent amber glaze over a thin layer of opaque brown slip. Still other scholars maintain that the tortoiseshell glaze was created by splashing a wax resist on an unfired vessel, after which the vessel was likely immersed in the dark glaze slurry and then subjected to a biscuit firing to fuse the brown glaze and to burn off the wax. Once the vessel had been removed from the kiln, a potter would paint amber glaze slurry over the unglazed, wax-resist-protected areas, after which the vessel would be returned to the kiln for its hightemperature firing. This method 1s possible in principle, but given the movement toward ever more efficient means of production in the Southern Song and Yuan, it seems unlikely that kilns would have employed two firings, not to mention the laborintensive practice of brushing glaze slurry over waxresist-protected areas. A bowl almost identical to this one was recovered at the Yonghe kiln site;'® another is in the Diane H.

Wenwu

Guowei, “Jizhouyao yizhi gaikuang” [An Overview of

fig. 16. 21

Wenwu 7 (1984): 88,

See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 112.

ter scars the jar’s floor, indicating that another vessel, perhaps a small bowl, was fired inside. This jar was

88 SMALL WITH

WIDE-MOUTHED TORTOISESHELL

JAR

GLAZE

Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown and transparent amber glazes From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province Hi

11.4 et

Diam,

13.0°em

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane Fund for the

Acquisition of Oriental Art

[1991.227]

This small, wide-mouthed guan jar has a rounded container with high-set shoulders and a short, waisted neck with a rolled lip. The container resembles a bo bowl in general appearance (compare no. 26), a ring at its uppermost edge clearly distinguishing the top of the shoulder from the base of the neck. The lower portion of the container tapers to a narrow, horizontal ledge from which the small circular footring descends. The flat-bottomed footring has angled walls so that it 1s triangular in section; the countersunk base is flat. Stopping approximately three-quarters of an inch short of the foot, a dark

chocolate brown glaze covers the exterior of the jar and the interior of its rolled lip; a caramel-colored slip-glaze coats the interior of the jar and that portion of the exterior between the foot and the lower edge of the dark glaze. Splashes of transparent amber glaze of varying size interrupt the dark brown glaze on the exterior, creating a tortoiseshell effect; several random splashes of amber appear in the caramel glaze on the interior and on the lower portion of the exterior. The body clay exposed at the foot fired a warm oatmeal color. A ring approximately one inch in diame-

88

wheel-turned, after which the foot and base were cut

with a knife. The method used to create the tortoiseshell glaze remains uncertain. The jar may have been dipped in the caramel slip-glaze and then, following a period of drying, immersed in the dark brown glaze. When the jar had dried again, the tortoiseshell effect may have been induced by splashing wood- or bamboo ash on the glaze surface. The jar was fired right side up in its saggar. The base sports one or two

brush-written characters now too faint to be read. Sometimes called “grain measures” or “rice measures,” though without evidence, small guan jars of this type enjoyed popularity during the Southern Song and Yuan periods. Closely related in shape (compare no. 110), jars from the Ganzhou kilns, also in Jiangxi province, figure among the cargo of the Chinese merchant ship that sank off the coast of Sinan, Korea, in the early 1320s, indicating that the shape persisted into the early fourteenth century.* Though they lack tapering, leaf-shaped handles, jars of this type claim the same general form as the white-ribbed jars made at a number of Cizhou-type kilns during the Jin dynasty (compare no. 61); the question of possible influence from north to south awaits further study. The tortoiseshell glaze on this jar was created through the same method as that on the previous bowl (no. 87), though the steps involved in that method remain in dispute. Like those in the band of medium brown glaze at the bottom of the previous bowl, the splashes of transparent amber glaze that interrupt the caramel glaze on this jar indicate that the slip-glaze slurry did not contribute directly to the formation of the splashes. One of the flaws of the tortoiseshell glaze 1s that, over time, at least some of the amber splashes flake from the pot, exposing the body clay; in the worst cases, all of the amber splashes flake from the surface, leaving unglazed, off-white spots in the chocolate brown matrix. In most cases, as exemplified by this jar from the Harvard University Art Museums, a few amber splashes flake away but most remain intact; 1n rare instances, including the previous bowl (no. 87) and the following dish (no. 89), the amber glaze formed a relatively stable bond with the body clay, so that only very small amounts have flaked. The reason for the improper fit between amber glaze and stoneware body remains unknown and probably cannot be ascertained until the exact technique by which the tortoiseshell glaze was created has been determined. Those scholars who believe a wax resist was involved in the creation of the tortoiseshell glaze suggest that

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

229

residues from the wax might have interfered with the fusing of glaze and body; practicing potters and conservation scientists generally believe that any wax that might have been used would have been thoroughly consumed in the heat of the kiln, leaving no residue to interfere with body-glaze bonding. Although they might resolve this particular issue, practical experiments will not shed light on the larger question of whether or not wax resists were employed in the creation of the tortoiseshell glaze. Now in the Jiangxi Provincial Museum, a related jar with tortoiseshell glaze was excavated at the Yonghe kiln site.” t

See Munhwa

kongbobu,

Munhwajae

kwanriguk,

Sinan haejé yumul, vol. 1, pp. 104, figs. 130-31; 159, fig. 207a—-b.

2 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. $1.

Of relatively conical form, this shallow dish has gently rounded walls and a small, circular floor. The thick footring descends from a narrow, horizontal ledge on the dish’s underside; triangular in section, the footring has angled walls and a flat bottom. The broad, flat base has a point at its center. A blackcoftee brown glaze covers the dish’s interior and the upper one-third of its exterior, stopping in an irregularly cusped edge; a band of dark caramel glaze, also with an irregularly scalloped lower edge, appears around the middle of the exterior, stopping well short of the foot. Brushed in transparent amber glaze, an abstract flourish, perhaps a stylized flower, embellishes one-half of the dish’s interior; the other half is

undecorated, save a dot of transparent amber midway to the rim. The unglazed portions of the dish fired buft. This dish was wheel-thrown—perhaps over a hump mold, as suggested by the small, crisply defined floor—after which the foot and base were trimmed with a knife. The method used to decorate the dish remains uncertain. The dish might first have been

89 SHALLOW

DISH

STYLIZED

FLORAL

WITH DECOR

Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown and transparent amber glazes From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 3.3 cm; Diam.

12.8 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane [1942.185.412]

coated with the caramel-colored slip-glaze, its irregular lower edge suggesting that the piece was dipped twice. Following a period of drying, the dark brown glaze was probably applied in two partial immersions, as indicated by its cusped lower edge. After another

period of drying, the design was likely brushed on the surface of the raw glaze, perhaps using a paste made of wood- or bamboo ash and water. Once it was dry, the dish was fired nght side up in its saggar. This decorative pattern is usually termed “moon and bamboo” [yuezhu] in modern Chinese literature,’ despite the lack of evidence indicating what

89

230

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

the potters actually intended it to represent. Although some have suggested that the decoration might be a stylized character, specialists in Chinese calligraphy report that no Chinese character is written this way, even in the highly cursive draft script

(caoshu). Since a dot 1s often used to represent the moon on Jizhou wares with painted decoration (see no. 94), the design may in fact portray bamboo, or

another stylized plant, in moonlight, the dark glaze representing the nighttime sky. The glaze on this dish and its congeners seems to have been produced in the same manner as the tortoiseshell glaze, the only difference being that the

decorative motif was brushed rather than splashed on

the surface. The amber glaze usually varies in thickness due to crawling in firing; the resultant pooling imparts a mottled appearance to the finished glaze. The mottling, though present, is less visible in the tortoiseshell glaze because the amber splashes are

generally smaller than the long tendrils designs. Vessels with painted decoration claim dynamic compositions with fluid, brushwork. A bowl with related decoration was the Yonghe site.*

of the painted usually calligraphic recovered at

1 Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di cigi, n.p., pl. 27; Yu, “Jizhouyao,” p. 112. 2 See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di cigi, n.p., Pp I. 27; Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-chou,” n.p., pl. 6a.

9O SMALL WITH

COVERED

BOWL

ITORTOISESHELL

GLAZE

Southern Song to Yuan period, 13th—14th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze

suffused with buff markings and bluish white streaks From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province Cup: HH. $77 cm; Diam.

7.6:em.

Cover: Diam. 7.8 cm Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr.

[108]

This set includes a U-shaped bowl and a flat cover with a tiny, pierced, strap handle at the indented heart of the cover’s lightly swollen center. The bowl’s thin walls expand from the circular foot and then rise vertically to the lip, where they incline slightly inward. Of intermediate thickness, the flatbottomed footring has a vertical outer wall and a

QO lightly angled inner one; the base is broad and flat. Triangular in section, a short flange projects downward from the underside of the cover, appearing midway between the cover’s center and its outer edge; a wide horizontal lip surrounds the flange. A dark brown glaze covers the bow] inside and out, ex-

cepting only the base, the bottom and inside of the footring, and the interior of the lip; the same brown glaze coats the top of the cover, including its outer edge, but excluding its underside, which 1s unglazed. Appearing honey-colored, transparent splashes with milky blue streaks enliven the dark brown glaze, creating a tortoiseshell effect. The exposed body clay fired off-white. The bowl and cover were wheelthrown, as indicated by the rilling marks that appear on both, after which the footring was shaped with a knife and the cover’s small handle was luted into place. The glazes’ order and technique of application remain uncertain; it 1s possible that once it had dried,

the bowl was immersed in the thin slurry of caramel glaze whose edge 1s visible at the bottom of the footring. Following another period of drying, the bowl may have been dipped in the slurry that produced the dark glaze, after which the inside of the bowl’s lip was immediately wiped free of glaze so that the cover could be fired in place. The tortoiseshell effect may then have been induced by splashing a paste of wood- or bamboo ash mixed with water and slip on the surface of the raw glaze. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar, the cover in place atop the bowl.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

231

Small covered bowls and jars were produced at a number of kilns during Song, Jin, and Yuan times (compare nos. 17, 39). Those made at kilns 1n the north tend to be larger than this exquisite bowl from the Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr. Collection, and they almost always have domed covers bordered by an everted, horizontal lip; in addition, their handles are usually in the form of a branch or twig. The related bowls from the Jizhou kilns are similarly shaped, but their covers are generally flat, and their handles are straplike and pierced, the latter perhaps to permit the attachment of a cord for lifting the cover. Most Chinese scholars term glazes of this type daimeiwen |tortoiseshell], despite their long tears and bluish white streaks, but a few call them hupiwen [tiger skin] to distinguish them from the classic tortoiseshell glaze (nos. 87, 88). Closely related, the two glazes show slight differences that likely reflect differing techniques of production. First, this glaze includes semitransparent buff areas within the dark brown matrix rather than discrete areas of transparent amber. Second, glazes of this type typically show bluish white streaks; the classic tortoiseshell glaze has only its mottled amber elements set in a sea of dark brown.

It is possible that this glaze, like the classic tortoiseshell glaze, was created by applying wood- or bamboo ash to the surface of the dark glaze before firing, employing anew the method believed to have been used at the Duandian and Huangdao kilns during the Tang dynasty to create the sky blue mottles in their chocolate brown glazes (see nos. 8-11). The bluish white markings on this rare covered bowl are similar in tonality to those on vessels made at the

Huangdao kilns (nos. 10, 11), even if they are less ex-

tensive; in addition, the areas of transparent glaze on this bowl resemble the halos of transparent, colorless glaze that often surround the blue markings on Huangdao pieces (compare no. 11). This suggests that the chemistry and physics of splashed Jizhou and Huangdao glazes may be related. Like the amber splashes in the classic tortoiseshell glaze, the light-toned markings 1n this glaze exhibit a tendency to flake, though the degradation follows a slightly different pattern. In this glaze, pits form in the light-colored areas, after which the glaze degrades around the pits and then flakes little by little as it delaminates. By contrast, pitting and degradation seldom appear in the classic tortoiseshell glaze; in that glaze, whole amber splashes typically flake, though small elements may flake individually if the splash has fractured. The differing patterns of degradation suggest that this glaze and the classic tortoiseshell glaze are not identical, even if they are closely related.

232

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

A tea bowl with a similar glaze is in the Tokyo National Museum.’

Another is in the Ashmolean

Museum, Oxford.?

1 See Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 195, no. 266. 2 Ashmolean Museum accession number ibid., p. 198, no. 269.

1956.742; see

vi MEIPING WITH

BOTTLE

ITORTOISESHELL

GLAZE

Southern Song to Yuan period, late 13th—14th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze suffused with buff markings From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 21.9 cm; Diam.

13.0 cm

Mr. and Mrs. Janos Szekeres Springing from the wide, circular foot, the lightly swollen walls of this bottle rise almost vertically to the shoulder, where they turn inward to ascend to

the short, cylindrical neck with its well-articulated

lip. Lightly flared, the thick footring has a flat bottom and an angled interior wall; the broad, flat base 1s countersunk. A deep brown glaze covers the exterior of the bottle and the interior of its neck, as well as

the base and the inside of the footring, leaving the interior of the bottle and the bottom of the footring unglazed. Of varying size, buff splashes with bluish white suffusions embellish the black-coftee brown glaze on the bottle’s exterior, imparting a tortoiseshell effect; the dark glaze on the base is undecorated. The exposed body clay fired off-white. This bottle was wheel-turned in sections that were luted together after drying. The glaze’s method of application is uncertain; it is likely, however, that once it had dried, the bottle was immersed foot-first into the

dark brown glaze slurry, after which the bottom of the footring was wiped clean. Following a period of drying, a paste made of wood- or bamboo ash mixed with water and slip may have been splashed on the surface to induce the tortoiseshell effect. The bottle was fired right side up in its saggar. Storage bottles of this shape are termed guan, jingping (compare nos. 73, 74), and meiping (compare nos. 103-105) in Chinese. The bulging shoulders, narrow waist, and lightly flaring foot characterize the classic meiping bottle, while the short, broad neck and semicarinated lip typify the classic jingping bottle. Since the shape names are later appellations that

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

233

are arbitrarily applied, all three can be considered appropriate. The glaze on this bottle appears to be closely related to that on the previous small covered bowl (no. go), its cloudy, semitransparent, buff splashes exhibiting the same milky blue suffusions. In addition, its

buff splashes show the same pitting and associated degradation as those on the small bowl. It has been suggested that an admixture of slip might have been added to the paste of ash and water that is thought to have been used to induce the tortoiseshell effect in glazes of this type. If it was indeed added to the paste, the slip may have opacified the splashes and caused them to appear buff rather than amber; it might also have helped to stabilize the glaze, lessening the tendency of the splashes to flake. A closely related meiping bottle was recovered among the cargo of the Chinese merchant ship that sank off the coast of Sinan, Korea,

in the early 1320s,

indicating that such pieces were made at least through the beginning of the fourteenth century.’ Though it boasts a different decorative scheme, a bottle of identical shape that was recovered at the Yonghe site has been attributed to the Yuan dy-

nasty;> the Yonghe bottle displays the same short, subtly waisted neck and thickened, well-articulated lip as this extraordinarily satisfying bottle from the Mr. and Mrs. Janos Szekeres Collection. A closely related meiping bottle is in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum

of Art, New York.’

1 I am grateful to Suzanne G. Valenstein of the Metropolitan Museum for calling the Sinan piece to my attention. See Munhwa kongbobu, Munhwajae kwanriguk, Sinan haejd yumul, vol. 3, p. 252, pl. 90, no. 119; 379, pl. 215,

no. 309. 2 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. ITS. 3 Metropolitan Museum accession number 26.292.70; see

Laurance Roberts, Treasures from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, exh. cat., China House Gallery, China Institute in

ve CONICAL

BOWL

GLAZE

Southern Song to Yuan period, late 13th—14th century suffused with buff markings From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province

H. 5.1 cm; Diam. 15.1 cm Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Mu[1994.125] seums, Shumei Culture Foundation Fund

Of broad, V-shaped section, this conical wan bowl has thin, straight walls that ascend from the small, circular foot. The relatively thick footring descends from a narrow, horizontal ledge on the bowl’s underside; the flat-bottomed footring has a vertical outer

wall and an angled inner one. The shallow base 1s flat. A chocolate brown glaze covers the bowl’s interior and exterior alike, excluding only the footring and base. A dense pattern of opaque buff splashes emblazons the bow] inside and out; the splashes vary in size and they display undercurrents of bluish white. The body clay exposed on the bowl’s under-

side fired off-white. This bowl was thrown on the potter’s wheel—perhaps with the aid ofa hump mold, as suggested by the tiny, well-defined floor— after which the foot and base were trimmed with a knife. The glaze’s technique of creation remains uncertain, but it perhaps involved immersing the bowl lip-first in the dark glaze slurry, and then, following a period of drying, splashing a paste composed of wood- or bamboo ash, slip, and water on the glaze surface. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. Smudges and deep fingernail impressions in the otherwise even glaze edge just above the footring indicate the points where the potter held the bowl in dipping it into the glaze. If there is an underlayer of caramel glaze, it is not discernible at the foot, the dark brown glaze having covered its lower edge.

kins, Julia Meech-Pekarik, and Suzanne Valenstein, The

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oriental Ceramics: The World’s Great Collections series, vol. 12 (Tokyo, New York, and San Francisco, 1977), n-p., pl. 38.

Detail, no. 92

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

TORTOISESHELL

Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze

America (New York, 1980), p. 48, no. 36; Marilyn Jen-

234

WITH

chocolate brown glaze; in addition, its buff splashes

are mostly intact, showing but minimal flaking. There are closely related bowls in The Cleveland

Museum

of Art;* the Museum

Severance and Greta Millikin Collection, exh. cat., The Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, 1990), no. 18. Museum

of Fine Arts accession number 50.2016; see

Hsien-ch’i Tseng and Robert Paul Dart, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, vol. 2, Chinese Art: Liao, Sung, and Yiian Dynasties (Boston, Go

1072), mp., no, 135.

Percival David Foundation collection number 305; see

Tokyo National Museum, A Hundred Masterpieces of Chinese Ceramics from the Percival David Collection, London, exh. cat., Tokyo National Museum (Tokyo, 1980), p. 163, no. 30; n.p., pl. 30. 4 See Chang Foundation, Ten Dynasties of Chinese Ceramics from the Chang Foundation, p. 21. LA

Now too faint to read, a single, brush-written character appears on the base. The glaze on this bowl is virtually identical to that on the previous meiping bottle, suggesting that the two pieces were made at about the same time. Both glazes have opaque to semiopaque buff splashes with undercurrents of bluish white; the buff markings on both exhibit a tendency to pit and then to degrade. This bowl from the Harvard University Art Museums ranks among the very finest of its kind: pleasingly disposed, its dense pattern of even-hued splashes contrasts beautifully with its homogeneous

See Tsui Museum

of Art, The Tsui Museum of Art, exh.

cat., The Tsui Museum of Art (Hong Kong, 1991), n.p., no. 43.

of Fine Arts, Boston;7

the Percival David Foundation, London;? the Chang Foundation Collection, Taipei;*+ and the Tsui Mu-

Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection number 6181.

worth Private Collection;° the Museum

pl. 7a.

seum of Art, Hong Kong.> Similarly glazed but differently shaped bowls are in the R. Hatfield Ells-

co

ern Antiquities, Stockholm;’ and a private collection in Europe.* 1 The Cleveland Museum

Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-chou,” n.p.,

of Far East-

See Oriental Ceramic Society, Iron in the Fire, p. 56,

no. 48.

of Art accession number 89.274;

see The Cleveland Museum of Art, Catalogue of the

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

235

73 SMALL WITH

WIDE-MOUTHED ABSTRACT

JAR

DECOR

Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze with buff markings, and with a brush-written inscription dated to the renchen year on the unglazed lower portion From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 11.3 cm; Diam. 13.4 cm Copyright © The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1995, John L. Severance Fund [86.14]

This small, wide-mouthed guan jar from The Cleveland Museum of Art shares the same shape as the small jar with tortoiseshell glaze from the Harvard University Art Museums (no. 88). Like the Harvard jar, it has a rounded container with high-set shoulders and a short, modestly inclined neck with a rolled lip. The container resembles a bo bowl in general appearance, with a lightly indented ring at its uppermost edge clearly distinguishing the top of the shoulder from the base of the neck. The lower portion of the container tapers to form the small circular foot. Triangular in section, the flat-bottomed footring has an angled interior wall; of intermediate depth, the countersunk base is slightly convex. The dark, chocolate brown glaze that covers the exterior of the jar and the interior of its lip terminates in an even edge approximately one inch above the foot. An abstract pattern of long, calligraphic lines, perhaps representing foliage, enlivens the jar’s exterior, the brushstrokes appearing buff where opaque and medium brown where semitransparent. A caramelcolored slip-glaze covers the jar’s interior, with a leaf-shaped resist silhouette overlapping the floor and side wall. The unglazed portions of the jar fired an oatmeal color. This jar was wheel-thrown, after which the foot and base were trimmed with a knife. The method used to create the glaze effects remains uncertain. The jar may first have received two successive immersions in the caramel glaze slurry, the resist material that created the leaf-shaped silhouette having been deposited on the interior between immersions. Once the jar had dried, the application of the dark brown glaze probably followed. After another period of drying, a paste composed of woodor bamboo ash, water, and slip was likely brushed on the raw glaze surface to create the abstract design. The jar was fired right side up in its saggar. Sometime after firing, a proud owner wrote an inscription in brush and ink around the unglazed portion of the jar’s exterior wall and also inscribed a single character

236

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

on the base. Now much abraded, the inscription reads Renchennian sanyue shiri mai [Purchased on the tenth day of the third month of the renchen year]; the character on the base is now too faint to be deciphered with certainty, but it may read Guang [Wide]. Chinese sources often refer to glazes of the type covering this jar as sayou [literally, “poured glazes,” or “sprinkled glazes”], a reference to the linear decoration’s abstract, unpredictable nature. The same sources often term the decoration /ujiwen, meaning “reed-patterned,” or “rush-patterned.” As this jar illustrates, the decoration was brushed on the surface in some cases; in others, it was poured on the sur-

face, as the Chinese name for the glaze aptly reflects.” Technically, this glaze appears to be identical to those on the previous two pieces (nos. 91, 92); all three vessels have a dark brown glaze with buft markings; the buff markings not only range from Opaque to semitransparent, but show hints of bluish white. The main difference between the glazes on the three pots is that the markings were brushed onto this jar, but were splashed onto the previous two pieces.

Tantalizing as it is, the brush-written inscription 1s dated to a cyclical year rather than to a regnal one, so it provides no help in dating the jar. In Southern Song and Yuan times, the renchen year corresponded to 1172, 1232, 1292, and 1352 in the Gregorian calendar. Even if it could be ascertained, the inscribed

date refers to the jar’s date of purchase, which may or may not relate directly to its date of manufacture.

oy SMALL

Moon,

BOWL

WITH

CLOUDS,

DECORATION

AND

BLOSSOMING

OF

PLUM

Southern Song to Yuan period, 12th—14th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze and with splashes of transparent amber glaze, the decoration painted in overglaze buff From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 4.2 cm; Diam.

13.5 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane Acquisition of Onental Art [1994.50]

Detail, no. 93. Copyright © The Cleveland Museum of Art, 199s.

Closely related jars are in the collection of the

Qingjiang County Museum in Jiangxi province’ and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.* At least two wan bowls with similar decoration were recovered at the

Yonghe site.> Other wan bowls with kindred decoration are in the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection;° the Shanghai Museum;’ the Royal Ontario Museum,

Toronto;° and the Field Museum

ural History, Chicago.” PUBLISHED:

The Cleveland Museum

of Nat-

of Art, ed., “The

Year in Review for 1986,” exh. cat., in Bulletin of The Cleve-

KH

land Museum of Art, vol. 74, no. 2 (1987): no. 219.

I am indebted to J. Keith Wilson of The Cleveland Museum of Art for providing me with a transcription and

os)

Nw

photograph of this inscription.

See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 74.

Fund for the

Of generally conical shape, this small wan bowl has thin, straight walls that spring from the short, circular foot and that round gently upwards at the lip. Triancular in section, the flat-bottomed footring descends from a narrow ledge on the bowl’s underside; the shallow base is flat with a distinct point at its center. A black-coftee brown glaze covers the bowl inside and out, ending in an irregularly cusped edge threequarters of an inch above the foot; its somewhat ir-

regular edge approaching the foot, a caramel-colored slip-glaze covers those portions of the bowl’s lower exterior not concealed by the dark glaze. Painted in fluid, buff brushstrokes, a cut branch of blossoming plum embellishes one half of the bowl’s interior. A W-shaped stroke representing the moon and clouds appears on the opposite side, midway to the rim; dots of transparent amber glaze appear on the floor and near the brushstroke. The exterior of the bow] is undecorated. The body clay exposed on the bowl’s underside fired buff. This bowl was wheel-thrown— perhaps with the aid of a hump mold, as suggested by

See ibid., n.p., no. $0. Museum

of Fine Arts accession

number

50.1208;

see

Tseng and Dart, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection of the “A

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, vol. 2, n.p., no. 134. See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciqi, n.p.,

NNn

pls. 37, 38. Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection

Co

~]

number 6332.

See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 74. Unpublished; Royal Ontario Museum accession number

\O

959.231.55.

Unpublished; Field Museum of Natural History accession number

127102.

94

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

237

the tiny, well-defined floor—after which the footring and base were shaped with a knife. Once the bowl had dried, it was apparently immersed lip-first in the caramel-colored slip-glaze; when it was dry, it must have been dipped in the dark glaze. Following another period of drying, the decoration was brushed on the interior walls, perhaps using a paste made of wood- or bamboo ash and water, possibly with an admixture of slip; the dots of transparent amber glaze may have resulted from heavy deposits of ash. The bowl was fired nght side up in its saggar. Two brushwritten characters reading Dawei [Great Position] appear on the base; their significance remains unknown. Chinese sources term decoration of this type yuemei, or “moon and plum”; though no literary works of the day record the name used for it in the Southern Song, the decorative scheme definitely does represent the plum, which blooms in February, before

donning its leaves (see discussion, no. 84). The most beloved of flowers in traditional China, the plum, or meihua, emerged as a distinct genre of Chinese painting in the Southern Song period. The Chinese literati considered the plum at its most appealing when illuminated by moonlight on a cold winter’s night, clearly the aesthetic vision that inspired the pairing of moon and plum on this bowl. Potters at the Jizhou kilns might have created the moon-and-plum decoration on their own, drawing inspiration from poetry and painting of the day; alternatively, they might have taken as models the designs on contemporaneous vessels of silver’ and lacquer. A dark brown lacquer bowl excavated in the 1950s from a Jin-dynasty tomb 1n Datong, Shanxi province, has a painted design representing plum,

unique, in having both opaque buff markings and splashes of transparent amber glaze. Bowls with similar painted decoration have been recovered at the Yonghe site. The R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection includes a bow] with related decoration,* while The Metropolitan Museum

of Art, New York, possesses two.° Others are in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco® and in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.’ 1 See Nanjing Song Zhang Bones of Jade, Silver and its 3,

2 See Chen Jindai tixi duction to Case from

238

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Zengbi and Zhang Lihua, “Jieshao Datong lian jian tan Song Jin tixi gongyi” [An Introthe Jin-Dynasty Tixi Carved Lacquer Toiletry Datong and a Discussion of Song and Jin Art

of Tixi Carved Lacquer],

Wenwu

12 (1985): 80, fig. 2.

Also see the small lacquered box with decoration of a branch of blossoming plum inlaid in mother-of-pearl; formerly in the collection of Mrs. Walter Sedgwick, London, the circular, covered box is illustrated in Bickford, Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice, p. 198, fig. 83. 3 See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciqi, n.p., pl.

28; Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 14; Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-chou,” n.p., pl. 6b.

4 Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection number 6040.

s One bowl is unpublished; it carries Metropolitan Museum accession number 25.215.8. Bearing accession num-

ber 24.100.1, the second bowl is published 1n Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 116, no. 112. 6 Asian Art Museum accession number B60 PI76; see

d’Argencé, Chinese Ceramics in the Avery Brundage Collec-

bamboo, and butterflies, for example; the reddish

brown plum branch sports three white flowers and thirteen buds.* Exceptionally rare today, painted lacquers were probably not uncommon during the Southern Song; the striking similarity of the painted design on this Jizhou bowl to that on the excavated lacquer bowl suggests that the Jizhou potters may well have taken inspiration from a lacquer piece. Although they are usually said to be painted in slip, overglaze buff designs of this type were most likely painted on the raw glaze surface using a woodor bamboo-ash paste that perhaps included an admixture of slip. By brushing on only a very light application of the paste, the potters were able to create decorative schemes that were not only more subtly hued than the buff splashes of the tortoiseshell glazes, but were more stable as well, and thus less subject to pitting and flaking. This bowl from the Harvard University Art Museums is unusual, though not

shi bowuguan, “Jiangpu Huangyueling Nan Tongzhi fugui mu,” p. 65, fig. 16; Bickford, Soul of Ice, p. 197, fig. 81; Rawson, “Song Connexions with Ceramics,” p. 20, figs.

tion, pp. 104—S, pl. 478; Bickford, Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice,

p. 203, fig. 9o. 7 Museum

of Fine Arts accession number §0.1210; see

Museum of Fine Arts, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection: Memorial Exhibition, p. 79, no. 315.

vs BOWL

WITH

INDENTED

TION

OF

A BUTTERELY,

AND

Two

PHOENIXES

LIP

AND

DECORA-

A STYLIZED IN

FLOWER,

FLIGHT

Southern Song to Yuan period, 12th—14th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration painted in overglaze buff From the kilns at Yonghe, Jian, Jiangxi province H. 4.5 cm; Diam.

11.6 cm

The Scheinman Collection

[A23]

base were shaped with a knife. Once it was dry, the bowl was immersed in the glaze slurry; following a second period of drying, the designs were painted on the interior with a brush, perhaps using a paste composed of wood- or bamboo ash and water (and possibly an admixture of slip). The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. Traditionally believed to appear in times of peace and prosperity, the phoenix is considered a most auspicious emblem, as noted in a previous entry (no. 2). One of the four divine creatures and one of the four directional symbols as well, it presides over the heavens’ southern quadrant and thus symbolizes the sun and warmth. By Song times, the phoenix was usually portrayed independently of the other animals with which custom had earlier associated it, and was typically depicted in flight, with wings spread and segmented tail trailing elegantly. Although the butterfly ornamented Ding vessels from the eleventh and

Collection’’ and the Victoria and Albert Museum,

London.** 4

bowl was wheel-thrown, after which its foot and

See Jason C. Kuo, ed., Born of Earth and Fire: Chinese Ceramics from the Scheinman Collection, Studies in Chinese

Art History and Archaeology series, vol. 1 (College Park, Md.,

i)

blossom enlivens the floor, while a schematized

butterfly appears between the two phoenixes. The bowl’s unglazed lower portion fired off-white. This

knobbed-cloud scroll,° the last-named doubtless in-

spired by related designs on contemporaneous silver’ and on carved lacquer of so-called tixi type (better known in the West by the Japanese name guri).° The decoration on this bowl was created in the same manner as the moon and blossoming plum decor on the previous bowl (no. 94). Despite statements in earlier books that they are painted in overglaze buff slip, the designs were most likely painted with a paste composed of wood- or bamboo ash and water, though the paste may have included a measure of slip. Bowls with virtually identical decorative schemes have been recovered at the Yonghe site.” Related bowls are in the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private

1992), p. 70, no. 45.

See Watson, Tang and Liao Ceramics, p. 170, no. 187. See also a closely related but unpublished box in the Harvard University Art Museums,

in

Of hemispherical form, this small wan bowl has rounded sides that culminate in a lightly indented, vertical lip. The flat-bottomed footring is triangular in section, its walls set at an angle; the shallow base is flat. The chocolate brown glaze that covers the bowl inside and out terminates in a relatively even edge midway between lip and foot. Painted in overglaze buff, two diametrically opposed stylized phoenixes emblazon the bowl’s interior, their wings spread in flight, their long tails flowing gracefully. A stylized

accession number

1991.267.

See an unpublished Tang mirror in the Harvard University Art Museums,

accession number

1984.215.

See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di cigi, n.p.,

pl. 29. LA

LA

\O

twelfth centuries (see discussion no. 15), it made its debut as ceramic decoration in the eighth or ninth century, on the appliqué-decorated wares from Changsha’ and on the molded covers of circular boxes with monochrome lead glazes.* Tang potters may have adopted the motif from the decorated backs of bronze mirrors, where it had already appeared as border ornament by the seventh or eighth century.’ The decoration on dark-glazed Jizhou wares with painted decoration 1s always highly abbreviated; on some pieces, however, the dots on the floor and side walls are convincingly arrayed as flowers and butterflies, providing justification for the identification offered here.* The motifs of moon and blossoming plum (no. 94) and of phoenixes and butterfly the latter combination termed fengdie in Chinese—number among the few subjects depicted on Jizhou vessels with overglaze painted decoration. The extremely limited repertory also includes such nonrepresentational designs as the circle and dot pattern> and the formalized

See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 116; Vainker, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain from Prehistory to the Present, p. 122, fig. 91.

6 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., nos. 82, 115; Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

239

wenyang tieyin di cigi, n.p., pl. 26; Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-chou,” n.p., pl. sa-d; Valenstein, A

Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 117, no. 113; Tseng and Dart, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine

Arts, Boston, vol. 2, n.p., no. 133. ~]

See Nanjing shi bowuguan [Nanjing Municipal Museum], “Jiangpu Huangyueling Nan Song Zhang Tong-

zhi fugui mu” [The Southern Song Tomb of Zhang Tongzhi and His Wife at Huangyueling, Jiangpu County,

Jiangsu Province],

Wenwu 4 (1973): 65, figs. 17, 18;

Jessica Rawson, “Song Silver and its Connexions with Ceramics,” Apollo, vol. 120, no. 269 (July 1984): p. 23,

\O

ec)

fig. 13.

See Chen Zengbi and Zhang Lihua, “Jieshao Datong Jindai tixi lian jian tan Song Jin tixi gongyi” [An Introduction to the Jin-Dynasty Tixi Carved Lacquer Toiletry Case from Datong and a Discussion of Song and Jin Art of Tixi Carved Lacquer], Wenwu 12 (1985): 80, fig. I. See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciqi, n.p., pl. 29; Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., nos. 31, 46.

10 Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection number 6030.

11 See Medley, Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p., pl. 118B.

96 TEA BOWL WITH INDENTED LIP AND DECORATION OF A PLUM BLOSSOM, Two

BUTTERFLIES,

Two

PHOENIXES

IN

AND

FLIGHT

Southern Song period, 12th-13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with tortoiseshell glaze on the exterior, and with papercut decoration reserved in dark brown glaze against a variegated buff ground on the interior From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 5.09 cm; Diam.

11.8 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Shumei Culture Foundation Fund [1995.3]

This yankou wan-shaped tea bowl has a small circular foot, steeply pitched walls, and a lightly indented, vertical lip. The round-bottomed, triangularsectioned footring descends from a narrow ledge on the bowl’s underside; the exceptionally shallow base is flat. A dark brown glaze with opaque, buff tortoiseshell markings coats the bowl’s exterior, reaching to the ledge encircling the footring. Dark brown openwork designs of two phoenixes and two butterflies in flight punctuate the variegated buff glaze on the interior, while a single stylized plum blossom

240

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

embellishes the small, well-defined floor. The buft

glaze crawled downward from the lip during firing; the rim thus appears lighter, and the pooled glaze immediately below it appears darker, the combination coincidentally providing a functional, if unintended, upper border. The body clay exposed on the bowl’s underside fired a light buff. This bowl was wheelthrown, probably with the aid of a hump mold, as indicated by both the crisply demarcated floor and the relief line below the lip; the footring and base were cut with a knife before the bowl was removed from the wheel. When it had dried, the bowl was

immersed in the dark brown glaze, smudges and fingernail impressions just above the foot revealing the points where the potter held it. Once the glaze had stabilized, reticulated papercuts in the forms of phoenixes, butterflies, and a blossom were affixed to the bowl’s interior, after which wood- or bamboo

ash, perhaps with an admixture of slip, was splashed on the exterior and sprinkled over the whole of the interior. Following another period of drying, the papercuts were removed to reveal the designs reserved in the dark brown glaze. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. The Jizhou kilns produced a variety of bowls, jars, bottles, censers, and even pillows in a range of sizes. The bowls are occasionally hemispherical in form (nos. 87, 108), but funnel-shaped yankou wan bowls and conical pie bowls (nos. 89, 92, 94, 97-99, IOI,

107) abound. Although the literary record and the limited repertory of shapes support the conclusion that Jian bowls were used almost exclusively for tea, the larger repertory of shapes suggests that Jizhou wares served a broader range of functions. The funnel shape, indented vertical lip, and relief ring below it indicate that this bowl from the Harvard University Art Museums imitates a Jian yankou wan tea bowl in form (see discussion no. 79), even if not in decorative style, suggesting that it was made for drinking tea. Although abundant textual references indicate that connoisseurs of tea used only Jian bowls in the Northern and early Southern Song periods, people who enjoyed drinking tea but who cared little about the Fujian-style customs and conventions that so fascinated the connoisseurs almost certainly used a wide variety of bowls for their tea, including those made at the Jizhou kilns. We cannot now distinguish exactly who used Jizhou tea bowls, however, as we cannot know exactly who, beyond the court and intelligentsia, used Jian tea bowls. The prodigious quantities of wasters at Shuyi and Yonghe indicate that both kiln complexes were not only active for many centuries but were enormously productive; each manufactured wares for the home

market as well as for the Japanese market, but whether or not the two found themselves in fierce competition remains unknown. Although they seem to have looked mainly to Ding and Cizhou wares for inspiration, potters at the Jizhou kilns occasionally imitated features of ceramics made at the Jian kilns, as evinced by this yankou wan-type bowl, which suggests that the two kilns’ markets overlapped, at least to some degree. Although identical in content and symbolism to that on the previous bowl (no. 95), the decorative scheme on this piece was created by a very different means; the exact techniques employed remain hotly debated, but most scholars now agree that stencils of cut paper played a role in the creation of the designs. Present-day Chinese texts thus term such decoration jianzhi wenyang, or papercut designs; the name used in Song and Yuan times remains unknown, as contemporaneous texts make no mention of such wares. According to the most widely held theory, vessels with papercut decoration were first coated inside and out with dark brown glaze, after which reticulated paper stencils were affixed to their interior walls, the stencils perhaps first stiffened and waterproofed with a coating of melted wax;* a paste comprising water and wood- or bamboo ash, and perhaps a little slip, was splashed on the exterior to impart the tortoiseshell effect and then carefully sprinkled over the whole of the interior to create the variegated buff markings.’ The cut-paper stencils acted as a resist, preventing the areas they covered

from receiving the paste; once the glaze had stabilized, the papercuts were removed to reveal the designs reserved in the primary glaze. Areas of unadulterated primary glaze fired black-coffee brown; by contrast, areas of primary glaze coated with the ash-and-slip paste matured a golden buff color, displaying tortoiseshell markings on the exterior and a dense pattern of hare’s-fur markings on the interior. The opaque buff markings on the exterior are presumably identical in technique of production to those on vessels completely covered with tortoiseshell glaze (nos. 91-92). Papercut designs rank among the best-known embellishments associated with Jizhou ware today. The designs range from phoenixes and butterflies to stylized blossoms (nos. 100, 101), flowering branches (no. 98), and even animals (no. 99). Virtually always including openwork elements, the designs are invariably reserved in dark brown against a variegated buff ground. Most designs derive from papercuts with relatively broad linear elements, but some rely on stencils with relatively slender elements (see nos. 98, 100). Many papercut designs are symmetrically disposed, but others boast a balanced yet asymmetrical arrangement (see no. 98). The Jizhou kilns were the only kilns in traditional China that used cut-paper stencils to impart resist designs, but they were not necessarily the only ones to use papercuts in the design process. The Ding kilns, for example, must have relied upon stencils of cut paper— perhaps first printed with the desired motifs

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

241

are in the Cleveland Museum:? the Seattle Art Mu-

seum;’ the Jiangxi Provincial Museum;* the Kyoto National Museum;? The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;'° the MOA Museum, Atami, Japan;"' and the City Art Gallery, Bristol, England,’* among numerous others. In addition, closely related bowls have been recovered at the Yonghe kiln site."

242

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

For a discussion of several of the theories that have been advanced regarding the creation of the designs, see Eugene Farrell’s essay in this catalogue; also see Hope Gumprecht, “An Investigation of Resist-Decorated Jizhou Ware,” unpublished research paper submitted 1n partial fulfillment of the requirements for a conservation internship in the Harvard University Art Museums’ Center for

z

Conservation and Technical Studies, 1990; Ye, Zhongguo

gutaoci kexue qianshuo, pp. 57-58; Oriental Ceramic Society, Iron in the Fire, pp. 56-57, no. 49.

An ancient art, paper cutting has a long history in China. According to Jiang Xuanyi, both wall paintings in the Buddhist caves at Dunhuang, Gansu province, and Chinese objects preserved in the Shés6-in, in Nara, Japan, reflect the use of papercuts during the Tang dynasty, and mentions in Dongjing menghua lu [Dreaming of the Splendors of the Eastern Capital], by Meng Yuanlao (c.1090—c.1150), attest to their use in the Northern Song.

Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di cigi, pp. 31-33.

Ye Zhemin states that only bamboo ash works satisfactorily in inducing the transmutations in the Jizhou glaze. He argues that in creating papercut designs and tortoiseshell markings, the primary glaze was partially coated with a silica-rich slip, after which the piece was fired around 1300 degrees Celsius in a neutral or weak oxidizing atmosphere; as it collected on the glaze surface during firing, the ash from the bamboo used as fuel reacted with the silica-rich slip to produce the distinctive markings. Ye, Zhongguo gutaoci kexue gianshuo, p. $7. See also Wang Liying, “Jizhouyao di zhuangshi yishu” [The Art of Decorating Jizhou Wares], Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 4 (1983): 17-18.

vA

Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 190. See Mowry, Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, p. 56, no. 1979.119; Freer Gallery of Art, The Freer Gallery of Art, vol. 1, China, n.p., pl. 26; p. 155, no. 26 (Freer Gallery accession number 44.8); Kelley, Chinese Gold and Silver in American Collections, p. 91, no. $9. The Cleveland Museum of Art accession number 23.53; see Kleinhenz, Pre-Ming Porcelains in the Chinese Ceramic

~

Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art, pp. 456-60.

Seattle Art Museum accession number 36.6; see Seattle Art Museum, Selected Works (Seattle, 1991), p. 162; Trub-

ner, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period through Ch’ien Lung, p. 84, no. 196.

GO

and then cut—in creating the gold-leaf designs they applied to selected black- and russet-glazed vessels (see no. 15). The similarity of many white wares made at the Yonghe kilns to those made at the Ding kilns indicates that Jizhou potters borrowed many styles and techniques of decoration from their Ding counterparts, perhaps including the use of papercut stencils. Though working in different manners, potters at both kilns used stencils to create representational designs whose bold colors contrast with the surrounding glaze: the designs on Ding ware appear in gold against a black or russet ground, while those on the more humble Jizhou ware appear in dark brown against a variegated golden buff ground. The papercut designs on Jizhou bowls thus may have derived both technical and aesthetic inspiration from Ding ware. Although many authors suggest that resist-dyed textiles, which were known already in Tang times, might have inspired the resist decoration on Jizhou wares,* the stenciled designs on both Ding and Jizhou wares would seem more likely to derive from the thin, reticulated sheets of gold and silver that in Han and Tang times were inlaid in pingtuo lacquer (better known in the West by the Japanese name of heidatsu lacquer).> Such decorated lacquers typically feature openwork representations of phoenixes along with a variety of plants and other birds and animals against a black or chocolate brown ground. Given the frequent replication of lacquer shapes and designs in both Ding and Jizhou wares (see discussions nos. 12, 94, 95), the simulation of pingtuo lacquer’s gold and silver designs would not be unexpected; not only do pingtuo lacquers, dark-glazed Ding bowls, and Jizhou vessels employ related decorative elements, they show the same aesthetic preference for representational designs in bright colors that contrast with their surrounding grounds. Available evidence does not yet support precise dating of Jizhou ware bowls with papercut decoration. However, the obvious similarity in shape to Jian bowls of yankou wan type permits their attribution to the Southern Song period. In terms of both shape and decoration, this bowl from the Harvard collections represents one of the most frequently encountered types of Jizhou bowls with papercut decoration. Virtually identical bowls

See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 63.

9 See Ky6td kokuritsu hakubutsukan

[Kyoto National Museum], Nihonjin ga kononda Chigoku toji: Tokubetsu tenrankai [Chinese Ceramics—The Most Popular Works among Japanese: A Special Exhibition], exh. cat., Kyoto National Museum

(Kyoto, 1991), n.p., no. go.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art accession number 29.100.222; see Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, Pi. 116, ne. ITLL.

11 See Toky6 kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 143, no. 209.

12 See Arts Council of Great Britain and The Oriental Ceramic Society, The Ceramic Art of China, p. 86, no. 101, and n.p., pl. 66, no. Io1.

13 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 84; Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di cigi, n.p., fig. 20; Chen Boquan, “Jiangxi chutu di Jyian Songdai Jizhouyao ciqi” [Several Song-Dynasty Jizhou Ware Ceramics Recovered in Jiangxi Province], Wenwu 3 (1975): n.p., pl. 5, no. 4.

a CONICAL OF

Two

Two

BOWL PLUM

WITH

DECORATION

BLOSSOMS

PHOENIXES

IN

AND

FLIGHT

Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with tortoiseshell glaze on the exterior, and with papercut decoration reserved in dark brown glaze against a variegated buff ground on the interior From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 4.9 cm; Diam.

14.5 cm

Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr.

[100]

Of flattened V-shaped section, this conical, pie-type bowl has straight walls that ascend from the circular foot. The round-bottomed, triangular-sectioned footring descends from a horizontal ledge on the

bowl’s underside; the shallow base is flat. The ex-

terior boasts a chocolate brown glaze that sports opaque, buff tortoiseshell markings and that stops in a relatively even edge just short of the ledge encircling the foot; the interior displays openwork designs of two phoenixes and two detached, stylized plum blossoms reserved in dark brown against a variegated golden buff ground. The tiny, well-defined floor is undecorated; the buff glaze crawled downward during firing, so the rim appears lighter than the surrounding glaze. The body clay exposed on the bowl’s underside fired a light buff. This bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, probably with the aid of a hump mold, as indicated by the crisply demarcated floor; the footring and base were trimmed with a knife before the bowl was removed from the wheel. Once it had dried, the bowl was immersed in

the dark brown glaze, smudges above the foot revealing the points where the potter held it. When the glaze had stabilized, reticulated papercuts in the forms of phoenixes and plum blossoms were affixed to the bowl’s interior walls, after which wood- or

bamboo ash (perhaps mixed with water and/or slip)

or

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

243

ing from it, however, this bowl leaves the floor un-

decorated, and it substitutes two stylized plum blossoms for that example’s butterflies. Because each design element was created with a discrete stencil, bowls with papercut decoration show considerable variation in the interpretation of “standard” decorative schemes. Hemispherical bowls often include three phoenixes instead of two, for example, but omit both butterflies and plum blossoms from the side walls.’ In rare cases, a pair of striding dragons may replace the phoenixes.* A related bowl was recovered at the Yonghe kiln site.? A virtually identical bowl is in the Staatliche

Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Museum ftir Ost-

tu

See Tokys kokuritsu hakubutsukan,

Tokubetsuten, p. 141, no. 207.

ii, le SS 4 Museum fiir Ostasiatische Kunst accession number

1971.26; see Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 193, fig. 264.

5 See Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the Kwan 6

Collection, pp. 380-81, no. 172.

Unpublished.

98 CONICAL

BOWL

BLOSSOMING

Southern Song period, 12th—13th century

H. 4.6 em

Diam.

1723 em

The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Russell Tyson

[1944.597]

This conical pie-type bow] is virtually identical in form to the previous bowl (no. 97); its canted walls ascend from the small, circular foot, presenting a

profile of flattened V-shape. Triangular in section, the very short, round-bottomed footring descends from a narrow ledge on the bowl’s underside; the exceptionally shallow base is flat. A coat of dark brown glaze covers the bowl inside and out, stopping in an even edge just short of the foot. Reserved in the dark glaze and arranged in a U-shaped configuration, an openwork papercut design representing two joined boughs of blossoming plum embellishes the variegated grayish blue glaze on the interior walls. Photograph © 1995, The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reserved.

exh. cat., Asia House Gallery, The Asia Society (New York, 1962), p. 102, no. C26; Hugo Munsterberg, The Arts of China (Rutland, Vermont, and Tokyo, 1972), p. 152 and

pl. 77. 1 See Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire, p. 83, no. 64; Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., nos.

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

DECOR

Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze on the exterior, and with papercut decoration reserved in dark brown glaze against a variegated grayish blue ground on the interior From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province

PUBLISHED: James Cahill, The Art of Southern Sung China,

244

WITH

PLUM

asiatische Kunst, Berlin;* similar pieces are in the collections of Simon Kwan, Hong Kong,? and of Dr. and Mrs. Marvin L. Gordon.°

49, 70.

Chiigoku no toji:

3 See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciqi, n.p., fig. 19; Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-chou,”

—

was splashed on the exterior and sprinkled over the whole of the interior. Following another period of drying, the papercuts were removed to reveal the designs reserved in the dark brown glaze. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. Like Jian bowls of pie shape, this conical bow] from the Falk Collection was doubtless used for drinking tea, perhaps the variety flavored with scallions, ginger, jujubes, peppermint, and other pungent ingredients. While it might have been inspired by a Jian bowl (nos. 78, 80, 81, 85), this bowl’s conical shape more likely derives from a Ding bowl (nos. 14, 15; see discussion no. 87). The elegant proportions argue for a Ding lineage, for example, as do the tiny floor and flattened V-shape. The very straight walls also suggest a kinship to Ding bowls; the canted walls of conical Jian bowls, by contrast, often culminate in a flaring mouth. Decorative schemes of the type seen on this bowl are variously termed _fengmeiwen [phoenix-and-plum design], feifengwen [flying phoenix design], and /uanfengwen [luan-and-phoenix design]. The last-named designation refers to another mythical bird, closely related to the phoenix, but for which there is no English name. Like the previous yankou wan-type bowl (no. 96), this conical tea bowl features two phoenixes in flight as its principal decoration; differ-

Profile view, no. 98.

1995, The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reserved. \ J

Photograph «

One

dot at the mouth

of the “U”

and another at its

center, just to the left of the carefully demarcated floor, might represent butterflies, or perhaps the moon and a butterfly, but they might also be no more than accidental markings. The grayish blue glaze crawled downward during firing; the lip thus appears a dark gunmetal gray, while the bowl’s center appears a bright, steel blue. The unglazed body clay on the foot and base fired a warm oatmeal color. This bowl was wheel-turned, probably with the aid of a hump mold, as indicated by the well-defined floor; the base and footring were shaped with a knife. Once it had dried, the bowl was immersed in the

dark brown glaze slurry, smudges at the lower glaze edge indicating the points where the potter held the piece. When the glaze had stabilized, an openwork stencil of cut paper representing the two flowering plum branches was affixed to the bowl’s interior, after which wood- or bamboo ash (perhaps mixed with water and/or slip) was meticulously applied to the whole of the interior. Following a period of drying, the papercuts were removed to reveal the designs reserved in the dark glaze. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. The most unusual feature of this rare and extraordinarily beautiful bowl from The Art Institute of

Chicago is its variegated blue glaze, which was surely an accident of firing rather than a planned result. In

fact, the bowl was no doubt intended to fire the

same colors as the previous conical bowl (no. 97); had it fired properly, it would almost certainly have matured a standard Jizhou bowl with dark brown papercut designs reserved against a variegated golden buff ground. The steel blue color likely resulted when the flames used to heat the firing chamber gave rise to an unusual kiln atmosphere—that is, one not usually employed at the Jizhou kilns—that induced an unanticipated chain of chemical reactions between the dark brown primary glaze and the wood- or bamboo ash applied to its surface. Both conservation scientists and contemporary potters have demonstrated that ash applied to a dark brown glaze can induce blue splashes to form during firing. In fact, the sky blue mottles on Tang-period Lushan and Huangdao wares are now believed to have been created through the application of ash to their chocolate brown glazes before firing (see nos. 8-11). The opaque buff tortoiseshell markings on many Jizhou vessels show undercurrents of light blue: witness the faint, milky blue streaks in the mottles on the small covered bowl from the Falk Collection (no. 90), for

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

245

example, or on the meiping bottle from the Szekeres Collection (no. 91). In addition, the variegated buff grounds of Jizhou bowls with papercut decoration often show distinct bluish white markings, as in those areas of pooled glaze on the floor and under the lip of the yankou wan-type bowl from the Harvard collections (no. 96). In fact, magnification reveals sky blue undercurrents in the opaque buff markings in virtually all Jizhou glazes, indicating that they are all closely related despite their varying appearances. In that context, it is not unusual per se that the glaze of this handsome bowl from the Art Institute of Chicago includes blue; what is unusual is that the blue elements dominate. The steel blue coloration on the bowl’s interior is not a continuous skin, but a haze punctuated with numerous small, circular mottles of gunmetal gray. In both color and configuration, the blue haze resembles that on those exceedingly rare Jian bowls of yaobian, or yohen, type (see discussion no. 85),° suggesting that this “kiln-transformed” bowl might be a close relative of those Jian bowls, at least in terms of the chemistry and physics of its blue-tinged glaze. Since ash must have played an important role in the formation of this unique bowl’s hauntingly beautiful glaze, the relationship might further suggest that ash contributed to the development of the blue-tinged

glaze on yaobian-type Jian bowls.”

Smaller, standard Jizhou bowls with related papercut decoration are in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of

Art, Kansas City, Missouri, and in the Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, New York.* A conical

bowl recovered at the Yonghe kiln site has a papercut design closely related to that on the Chicago bowl.° PUBLISHED: Maggie Bickford et al., Bones of Jade, Soul of

Ice: The Flowering Plum in Chinese Art, exh. cat., Yale Univer-

_

sity Art Gallery (New Haven, 1985), pp. 200-201, fig. 85 and p. 276, no. $8. See Koyama, Temmoku, n.p., color pls. 3-8.

2 See Yamasaki and Koyama, “The Yohen Temmoku Bowls,” pp. 89-93; Chen, Chen, and Huang, “Jian Temmoku Wares for Tribute: Part 1: Their Social and Cultural Intensions,” pp. 80-86; Chen, Chen, and

Huang, “Jian Temmoku Wares for Tribute: Part 2: Their Intensions of Natural Sciences,” pp. 87-93.

3 See Trubner, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period

through Ch’ien Lung, p. 84, no. 194.

A

4 See Bickford, Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice, p. 199, fig. 84. See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciqi, n.p.,

fig. 6.

246

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

79 CONICAL AND

BOWL

WITH

DECORATION

Moon,

AND

OF

STYLIZED

FOLIATE

RIM

RHINOCEROS,

CLOUD

Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, and with papercut decoration reserved in dark brown glaze against a variegated buff ground on the interior From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 6.0 cm; Diam.

17.0 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane [1942.185.408]

Of flattened V-profile, this conical pie-type bowl has a small, circular foot and flaring walls; almost identical in form to the previous two bowls (nos. 97, 98), it differs from them in having six evenly spaced notches around its rim. The short footring has straight walls and a rounded bottom; the shallow base is flat. Stopping in an even edge just above the foot, a dark brown glaze covers the entire bowl, excluding only the foot and base. Reserved in black-coftee brown against the variegated buff glaze, a papercut design of a recumbent rhinoceros gazing at the crescent moon and cloud scroll on the opposite wall embellishes the interior. Like that of the previous bowl (no. 98), the exterior is unadorned. The body clay exposed at the base fired buff, though soiling now causes it to appear darker. This bowl was thrown on the potter’s wheel, probably over a hump mold as indicated by the crisply defined floor, after which the foot and base were shaped with a knife. When it had dried, the bowl was immersed in the dark glaze slurry, smudges along the glaze edge revealing the points where it was held by the potter. Once the glaze had stabilized, two openwork stencils of cut paper were affixed to the interior walls, after which wood- or bamboo ash (perhaps mixed with water and/or slip) was carefully applied to the interior. Following another period of drying, the papercuts were removed to reveal the designs reserved in the dark glaze. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. The bowl has been broken and repaired; although some areas have been filled to compensate for missing pieces, the area with the recumbent rhinoceros 1s entirely original. Unusual in the context of Jizhou ceramics, the notches around the rim segment this bowl so that it resembles an open blossom; the notches link the bowl to dark-glazed vessels from the Ding kilns, which often have foliated lips (see nos. 13, 19).

99 Bowls from the Jian kilns, by contrast, virtually always have plain, circular rims; in addition, although

many Jian bowls of pie shape have trumpet mouths (see nos. 80, 81, 85), only the rare Jizhou bow] displays a flaring lip." With their tiny floors, straight walls, and flattened V-form, conical Jizhou bowls

generally show greater kinship to bowls from the Ding kilns than to those from the Jian kilns. Depicting a rhinoceros gazing at the moon, the decoration on this bowl is of an exceptionally rare type. Now extinct in China, the rhinoceros was known there in antiquity and was realistically represented in bronzes and jades of the Shang and Early Western Zhou periods; it was valued for its hide,

which was used to fabricate armor, and perhaps also for its flesh, since its bones have been recovered from

Shang-dynasty tombs. Although it is uncertain when the Chinese began to use the horn—actually a solid mass of agglutinated hair rather than true horn—the fourth-century writer Ge Hong credited it with the valuable power of detecting and neutralizing poison. As medicinal and aphrodisiacal properties were also ascribed to it, the rhinoceros horn quickly entered the vast Chinese pharmacopoeia. By the Tang and Song, vessels were crafted in rhinoceros horn, as

were decorative belt plaques and tanbing, a type of scepter, or wand. Seldom depicted in the arts of the Six Dynasties period, the rhinoceros, or xiniu, reappeared in the arts of the Tang, especially in the ornament of silver vessels, where it was portrayed with considerable

realism.’ The rhinoceros entered the repertory of the ceramic decorator in the late Northern Song or Jin period, by which time it had come to be represented as a fanciful beast with the body ofa deer or, more typically, with the body and bushy tail of a water buffalo, the single large, curving horn issuing from its forehead its only differentiating feature.* In Song ceramics, the rhinoceros is typically shown at rest, looking at the moon while reclining on a grassy spit of land at the water’s edge. According to ancient legend, crescent or star-shaped white markings formed in the horn as the animal gazed at the moon; since horns with such markings were highly coveted in Song times, especially as material for belt plaques, the legend found expression as a motif in the deco-

rative arts.

While it never gained widespread popularity, the motif of the rhinoceros gazing at the moon—called xiniu wangyue in Chinese— occasionally appears on celadon-glazed Yaozhou wares® and on white Ding bowls with molded decoration.” Until recently it was believed that the motif appeared solely on those two northern wares;® as its only known occurrence on a Jizhou vessel, this rare bow] from the Harvard University Art Museums not only documents the motif’s occasional use at southern kilns, but strengthens the argument that the Jizhou potters modeled many of their wares after ceramics made at the Ding kilns. Apart from its identifying horn, the rhinoceros portrayed on this bow] differs little from the water buffaloes that appear as subjects of both paintings?

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

247

and jade carvings’®° in the Southern Song and Yuan periods. Probably due to the differing techniques of decoration, the motif on this bowl is more abstractly interpreted than those on Ding vessels; though it omits the lapping waves and grassy finger of land that usually set the scene on Ding examples, the motif on this bowl includes the cloud that typically cloaks the crescent moon on Ding bowls. This bowl has been broken and repaired, but that portion with the rhinoceros is entirely original, so the recumbent beast appears exactly as created. Although portions of the opposite wall are original, the small area that included the crescent moon and the overlapping tendril of cloud is missing, so their appearance can only be imagined. Despite that loss, the remainder of the cloud scroll is original. A shape resembling the lower point of a sickle appears by the cloud scroll’s upper tendril, indicating that a crescent moon must originally have been a part of the composition. PUBLISHED: Trubner, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period through Ch’ien Lung, p. 84, no. 197.

1 A rare Jizhou tea bowl with papercut decoration in the Buffalo Museum of Science has a flaring lip (accession

i)

number Ch417); see Bickford, Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice, pp. 199, 276, fig. 84.

Dating to the late 12th century B.c., the most famous early Chinese representation of the creature is the rhinoceros-shaped zun wine vessel in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (accession number B60 BI+); see Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco: Selected Works (San Francisco, 1994), p. 84. For additional information on the early his-

tory of the rhinoceros in China, see Soame Jenyns, “The Chinese Rhinoceros and Chinese Carvings in Rhinoceros Horn,” Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society 29 (1955): 31-62, pls. 15A and c.

3 See Gyllensvard, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 186-87, no. 120; Gyllensvard, Chinese Gold,

Silver and Porcelain: The Kempe Collection, pp. 58, 81, no. $9.

4 For information on the rhinoceros as ceramic decoration,

see Wirgin, “Sung Ceramic Designs,” pp. 196-98.

s Ibid., p. 197. —

6 See ibid., n.p., pl. 9g; Mainichi shimbunsha and Nihon

Chigoku bunka koryii kyokai, Chiigoku nisennen no bi,

n.p., no. 48.

Museum, Three Hundred Masterpieces of Chinese Painting in the Palace Museum, vol. 3, n.p., no. 140; Ho et al., Eight

Dynasties of Chinese Painting, pp. $7, no. 41; 95-90, fie. "76:;

10

See James C. Y. Watt, Chinese Jades from Han to Ch’ing, exh. cat., Asia House Gallery, The Asia Society (New York, 1980), p. 66, nos. 47, 48. Also see an unpublished

jade desk sculpture representing a boy on the back of a water buffalo in the collection of the Harvard University Art Museums; crafted in mottled gray nephrite, the small sculpture or paperweight dates to the Southern Song or Yuan period (accession number

1942.185.122).

TOO) TEA BOWL WITH DECORATION OF THREE QUATREFOIL FLORAL MEDALLIONS Southern Song period, 12th-13th century

Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with tortoiseshell glaze on the exterior, and with papercut decoration reserved in dark brown glaze against a variegated buff ground on the interior From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 5.4 cm; Diam.10.8

cm

R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection

[6070]

Resembling a Jian bowl of yankou wan type, this tea bowl has steeply pitched walls that rise from the small circular foot to the short vertical lip. The short, round-bottomed footring is triangular in section, and descends from a narrow horizontal ledge on the bowl’s underside; the shallow base is flat. A dark

brown glaze with opaque, buff tortoiseshell markings covers the exterior, forming an even edge just above the ledge encircling the foot. Reserved in the dark brown glaze, three openwork panels of quatrefoil shape appear against the variegated buff glaze on the interior, each panel with a blossoming plant, perhaps a peony. The golden buff glaze crawled downward from the lip during firing; the rim thus appears lighter, while the pooled glaze immediately below it appears darker. The body clay exposed on the bowl’s underside fired a light buff. This bowl was wheelthrown, possibly with the aid of a hump mold; the footring and base were cut with a knife before the bowl was removed from the wheel. When it had dried, the bowl was immersed in the dark brown

8 Ibid., p. 197.

glaze, smudges above the foot revealing the points where the potter held it. Once the glaze had stabilized, three thin-lined, reticulated papercuts were

g See Editorial Committee of the Joint Board of Directors of the National Palace Museum and National Central

bamboo ash, perhaps with an admixture of slip, was

7 See Wirgin, “Sung Ceramic Designs,” n.p., pls. 84e, 92b, 93, 101a—b.

248

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

affixed to the bowl’s interior, after which wood- or

Collections, and also in the Ashmolean Museum,

Oxford.° Formerly in the collection of Howard Hollis, a bowl with three quatrefoil panels featuring auspicious phrases is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art;’ another is in the Tokyo National Museum; and another is in a private collection in

|

Japan.?

See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciqi, n.p., figs. 14-16; Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., nos. 15, 38, $2, 85, 86.

2 See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciqi, n.p.,

ciqi,” n.p., pl. 5, no. 2. to

&

See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di cigi, n.p., fig. 18; Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 22; Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares

Nn

WN

Se

from Chi-chou,” n.p., pl. 3b.

~—l

splashed on the exterior and applied over the whole of the interior. Following another period of drying, the papercuts were removed to reveal the designs in the dark brown glaze. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. Archaeological investigations at Yonghe have amply documented the production of tea bowls with discrete panels of papercut decoration at the Jizhou kilns. Usually three in number and quatrefoil in shape, such panels appear on hemispherical and yankou wan-type bowls, but apparently not on those of conical pie shape. The motifs within the panels generally feature flowering plants,’ as seen in this fine example from the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection; others depict butterflies, phoenixes, ducks, and even deer.* Yet another group of bowls has panels emblazoned with auspicious four-character phrases; those most often encountered read Chang ming fu gui [Long life, wealth, and honor], Fu shou kang ning [Wealth, longevity, health, and peace], Jin yu man tang [May gold and jade fill your hall], and Shou shan fu hai [May you live to be as old as the mountains; may your good fortune be as vast as the sea].* In some bowls each panel displays the same phrase, but in others each panel boasts a different one. The embellishment of Jian tea bowls with similar auspicious phrases in overglaze gold (see discussion no. 86) suggests that such decorative schemes enjoyed a measure of popularity throughout south China during the Southern Song. Given that Jizhou bowls with such decoration far outnumber the related Jian bowls, it further suggests that, at least occasionally, potters at the Jian kilns must have taken inspiration from the designs on Jizhou wares. Related bowls, each with three quatrefoil floral medallions, are in the Jan Wirgin* and Meiyintang>

See Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-chou,” n.p., pl. 2a. See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, p. 283, no. 526. Ashmolean Museum accession number x 1268; see Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 198, fig. 272. Los Angeles County Museum accession number $2.13; see Trubner, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period

through Ch’ien Lung, p. 84, no. 195.

oO

IOO

See Medley,

pl. r10B—c,

Ytian Porcelain and Stoneware, if,

9 See Tokyo kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 142, no. 208.

1O1 CONICAL OF

BOWL

STYLIZED

WITH

PLUM

DECORATION

BLOSSOMS

Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, and with papercut decoration reserved in dark brown glaze against a variegated buff ground on the interior From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province A, $0 ene Diam,

19.5 ei

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Avery Brundage Collection [B60 P1731]

This conical bowl resembles a flattened V in profile, having thin straight walls that ascend from the small circular foot. Triangular in section, the short, roundbottomed footring descends from a narrow ledge on the bowl’s underside; the base is shallow and flat. A

chocolate brown glaze covers the bow] inside and

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

249

2d

out, stopping just short of the foot in an even edge. Reserved in the dark brown glaze, sixteen stylized plum blossoms punctuate the golden buff glaze on the interior walls, while a seventeenth graces the tiny floor. The evenly spaced, six-petaled blossoms are arranged in two tiers, with ten in the upper tier and six in the lower one. The dark brown glaze on the exterior is unadorned. The body clay exposed on the underside fired buff. This bowl was wheel-turned,

probably with the aid of a hump mold, as suggested by the crisply demarcated floor; the footring and base were neatly trimmed with a knife. When it had dried, the bowl was dipped in the dark glaze slurry; once the glaze had stabilized, openwork stencils of cut paper were affixed to the floor and interior walls, after which wood- or bamboo ash (perhaps mixed with water and/or slip) was carefully applied to the interior. Following another period of drying, the papercuts were removed to reveal the designs reserved in the dark brown glaze. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. Almost always arranged in two tiers, stylized plum blossoms appear as decoration both on yankou wantype bowls and on conical bowls, as illustrated by this satisfying example from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Conical bowls generally sport seventeen blossoms, including the one on the floor, while yankou wan bowls generally have fifteen. Numbers vary from bowl to bowl, however, as do flower

250

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

types. In addition, although the rims of most such

bowls are undecorated, a few have an embellished

border just below the lip." Not only did the use of papercut stencils facilitate the replication of individual motifs, it permitted considerable variation in the interpretation of standard designs. Numerous related bowls have been recovered at the Yonghe site.” Yankou wan-type bowls with similar papercut decoration of plum blossoms are in the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,’ the Shanghai Mu-

seum,* the Meiyintang Collection,® and the Simon a. Kwan

Collection.”

ExuiBiTED: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Art of Tea in East Asta, 1982.

PUBLISHED: d’Argencé, Chinese Ceramics in the Avery Brundage Collection, pp. 104-5, pl. 474. 1 See Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-chou,”

n.p., pl. 4b.

2 See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciqi, n.p.,

ciqi,” n.p., pl. 5, no. 1; Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 48. 3 Museum

of Fine Arts accession numbers 50.2013 and

50.2015; see Museum of Fine Arts, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection: Memorial Exhibition, pp. 82-83, nos. 327-28.

Bowl number s0.2015 is also illustrated in Tseng and

Dart, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, n.p., no. 136.

4 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 75. § See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, p. 283, no. 525.

6 See Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the Kwan

Collection, pp. 382-83, no. 173.

LOZ VASE

WITH

BLOSSOMING

DECORATION PLUM

OF

BRANCHES

Southern Song to Yuan period, 13th—14th century

Jizhou ware: ivory white stoneware with decoration re-

served in the biscuit against the dark brown glaze, the reserved designs covered with clear glaze over slip-painted details, selected details incised through the brown glaze From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province

H. 20.2 cm; Diam.

11.8 cm

The Scheinman Collection

[88]

Resting on a short, circular foot, this small pearshaped bottle or vase has a globular body and a subtly flaring neck with a rolled lip. The lightly splayed footring has thick walls and a flat bottom; the broad base is flat. A black-coffee brown glaze covers the vessel’s exterior and the upper portion of the neck’s interior. The interior wall and bottom of the footring are unglazed, as are the base and the vessel’s interior; the exposed body clay fired off-white. Fingerprints and smudges impart an irregular edge to the glaze on the exterior of the footring. Reserved in the biscuit against the dark brown glaze, a vertically oriented plum branch with eight blossoms emblazons the

vessel’s front, and another its back. This vase was

wheel-thrown in sections that were luted together after drying; once the vessel had been assembled, openwork stencils of cut paper were affixed to the

exterior, and then the vase was immersed in the dark

brown glaze. Once the glaze had stabilized, the stencils were removed to reveal the reserved designs, after which the blossoms’ stamens and pistils were painted with a slip-laden brush, and the sgraffiato branch tips were incised through the glaze. Following another period of drying, the reserved motifs and their slip-painted details were covered with a thin coat of clear glaze, probably with a brush. The vase was fired right side up in its saggar. Chinese texts variously term bottles of this shape ping [bottles], hua ping [flower vases], or changjing ping [long-necked bottles], underscoring the uncertainty concerning their exact function. Undecorated but similarly shaped vessels frequently appear as flower

vases in illustrations from Yuan and early Ming woodblock-printed books, indicating that many such vessels indeed served as vases for cut flowers." In illustrated secular dramas, such vases often appear in pairs on an altar, flanking a ding-shaped censer (see no. 109).

The shape of this vase derives from the longnecked, bottlelike variant of the hu jar that was popular in both bronze* and ceramic ware} during the Han dynasty. Although this interpretation of the hu fell from favor after the collapse of the Han, it found renewed popularity during the Song, first in bronze* and then in ceramic ware. The decorative scheme distinguishes this vase from its Bronze Age models, as do the slight flare of the neck and the organic flow of shoulder into neck. Modern Chinese sources term glaze-resist decoration tihua, which means “‘cut decoration.” Given

their use of stencils to create resist patterns on bowls with so-called papercut decoration (nos. 96-101), potters at the Jizhou kilns may have developed the glaze-resist technique on their own. On the other hand, given the assumed influx of potters from the north in the late Northern Song (see discussion no. 87), 1t is also possible that Jizhou potters modeled their glaze-resist designs on those Cizhou-type wares

with cut-glaze decoration (nos. 66-75).

Despite their superficial similarity, cut-glaze and glaze-resist decoration differ in important ways. First, in terms of technique, cut-glaze decoration is created by fully coating the vessel with glaze, incising the outlines of the design through the stable but still moist glaze, and then shaving the glaze from the background areas. Glaze-resist decoration is created by affixing a stencil to the surface of the unglazed vessel and then immersing the vessel in the glaze slurry, with the result that the covered area remains unglazed. Second, in cut-glaze design schemes, the glazed representational elements appear against an unglazed background; in glaze-resist decorative schemes, by contrast, the unglazed design elements appear against a fully glazed ground. Cizhou-type cut-glaze wares thus have dark designs set against a light ground, while Jizhou glaze-resist wares have off-white designs against a dark ground. Third, because the design elements are glazed on Cizhou-type cut-glaze wares, details are necessarily incised in sgraffiato technique; since the design elements are unglazed on Jizhou glaze-resist wares, such details are often slip-painted with a brush. Fourth, although they sometimes have an undercoating of white slip that is revealed when the dark glaze is shaved away (see no. 67), Cizhou-type cut-glaze wares never show a clear glaze over the shaved areas; as their

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

251

incised branch ends were left unglazed, further contributing to their roughness. In some cases, clear glaze seeped into the hollows of the incised elements, presumably during application. Probably applied with a brush, the clear glaze overlaps the edges of the chocolate brown glaze. In some areas, the dual apphcation created a subtle, milky white haze on the surface of the brown; in others it created a narrow halo of increased luster surrounding the reserved design. Similar vases have been recovered at the Yonghe kiln site.° In the West, related examples are in the

collections of Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr.,” the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Ashmolean Museum,

Oxford.? The R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection includes two related vases with chestnut glazes.’ PUBLISHED:

Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire, p. 84, no. 65.

See Shanghai Museum

_

O

facsimile edition ofa 1478 wood-

block reprint of Xinbian quanxiang shuochang zuben hua Guan Suo chushen zhuan deng si zhong [Newly Compiled, Fully Ilustrated Biography of Guan Suo in Four Parts],

n.p., but illustrations on front and back of first page, and on front and back of last page, in Ming Chenghua shuo-

IO2

chang cihua congkan: Shiliu zhong fu Baitu ji chuandi yi

zhong, Shanghai bowuguan [Shanghai Museum], vol. 1 (Shanghai,

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

1973).

tN

See John Alexander Pope, Rutherford John Gettens, James

Cahill,

and Noel Barnard,

The Freer Chinese

Bronzes, vol. 1: Catalogue (Washington, D.C., 6. 867,210

1967),

TIS.

3 See Okazaki Takashi, Chiigoku kodai [Ancient China], Sekai toji zenshii [Ceramic Art of the World] series, vol. 10 (Tokyo, 4

1982), p. 212, no. 197.

See Mowry,

China’s Renaissance in Bronze, pp. 28, no.

40, no. 6; Rose

Kerr,

Later Chinese Bronzes,

Victoria

3; and

Albert Museum Far Eastern series (London, 1990), pp. LA

25, no. 14 (left); 40, no. 27; 46, no. 35. See Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 118, no. 115; Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-

ON

Jizhouyao ciqi,” n.p., pl. 4, no. 4.

See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciqi, n.p., fig.

NI

cigi,’ n.p., pl. 4, no. 3; Hughes-Stanton and Kerr, Kiln Sites of Ancient China, pp. 38, 54, 143, no. 277.

See Bickford, Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice, pp. 202, fig. 87; 276, no. 60.

Co

body clay is nearly white, Jizhou glaze-resist wares seldom, if ever, employ white slip, but those pieces with slip-painted details often display a thin coat of clear glaze over the decorated areas. The subject matter of the glaze-resist decoration on vases of this shape is limited to blossoming plum branches. Smaller vases tend to orient the branch horizontally around the globular container, while larger ones, such as this example from the Scheinman Collection, tend to place it vertically. The vertically oriented branches show a kinship to the blossoming plum branches that often adorn Jizhou glaze-resist meiping bottles.° The ends of the plum branches are often incised on Jizhou vessels of this type. It is assumed that the thick, dark brown glaze overwhelmed the stencil in those areas, blurring the design as it seeped under the stencil’s slender, fingerlike projections. After removal of the stencil, the branch ends were incised to clarify the design. In some cases, the ends were delicately incised through the glaze; in others, as exemplified by this vase, the ends were deeply incised into the body, perhaps to suggest the roughness of the weathered old branch’s bark. The brown glaze surrounding the branch ends shows a natural edge, indicating that the details were unquestionably incised before firing. Although the resist portions of the design were coated with a thin application of clear glaze, the

Museum

of Fine Arts accession number 50.1190; see

Tseng and Dart, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, vol. 2, n.p., no.

129.

9 See Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-chou,” n.p., pl. 8b.

10 Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection number $242.

attached to its surface, and it was immersed foot-first

103 MEIPING

BOTTLE

PHOENIX

AND

WITH

CLOUD

DECOR

Southern Song to Yuan period, 13th—14th century Jizhou ware: ivory white stoneware with decoration reserved in the biscuit against the dark brown glaze, the reserved designs covered with clear glaze over slip-painted details From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 29.3 cm; Diam. 16.2 cm Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane Fund for the Acquisition of Oriental Art [1993.219]

in the glaze slurry, after which the bottom of its footring was immediately wiped free of glaze. When the glaze had stabilized, the stencils were removed to reveal the reserved designs, then the details were painted using a brush dipped in iron-rich slip; following another period of drying, a thin coat of clear glaze was brushed over the decorated areas. The bottle was fired night side up in its saggar. The thin coat-

ing of clear glaze applied over the reserved areas to protect the slip-painted details proved incompatible with the dark brown glaze; because the two glazes bubbled, and perhaps even boiled, during firing,

those areas surrounding the designs where the clear

rolled lip. The flat bottom of the short, thick-walled

glaze lies atop the dark brown glaze show numerous burst bubbles (see discussion no. 31). The surface of the glaze has been ground and polished to lessen the impact of the firing flaws. Probably used for storing wine, narrow-footed, broad-shouldered bottles of this type are generally called meiping in Chinese. The term refers to a tall

broad, flat base is shallow and countersunk. The rich,

bottle with small mouth, short neck, broad shoulders, and constricted waist. The name is anachronistic, for

The walls of this meiping bottle rise almost vertically from the subtly flaring foot to the bulging shoulder, where they turn inward, constrict, and then rise again to form the lightly indented neck with its

footring has a subtly chamfered outer edge; the

black-coffee brown glaze that covers the bottle’s base

in Song, Jin, and Yuan times meiping bottles were

leaves the bottom of the footring and the interior of the vessel unglazed; the exposed body clay fired offwhite. Reserved in white against the dark brown glaze, two pairs of phoenixes emblazon this bottle,

liquids, rather than as vases for cut branches of blossoming plum, as the term meiping (literally, “plum bottle,” or “plum vase’’) implies. In fact, the term meiping does not appear in pre-Qing texts. The Qing-dynasty treatise Yinliuzhai shuo ci [A Discussion

and exterior extends into the interior of its neck, but

one pair on the front, the other on the back; stacked

vertically, two cloud scrolls appear on each side to separate the phoenixes on the front from those on the back. In each pair of phoenixes, the one on the left descends, its tail segmented into four filaments with serrated edges, while the one on the right ascends, its tail arranged in a fanciful scroll. This meiping bottle was wheel-turned in sections that were luted together after drying. Once the bottle had been assembled, reticulated stencils of cut paper were

used for storing wine, vinegar, soy sauce, and other

of Ceramics by the (Master of the) Yinliu Studio]

states that such bottles were called meiping because the mouth was as small as a slender plum branch.' The name gradually gained currency and has remained in use throughout East Asia to this day. A quintessential Song shape, the meiping form originated in silver and was quickly imitated in ceramic ware. A silver, covered meiping bottle of Song date was recovered in the 1971 excavations of the

1195-dated tomb of Zhang Tongzhi and his wife in Jiangpu county, Jiangsu province; the 1959 excavations at Deyang, Sichuan province, yielded others. Most closely related in shape to this bottle from the Harvard University Art Museums is the silver meiping recovered amongst the cargo of the Chinese merchant ship that sank of the coast of Sinan, Korea, in the early 1320s.* Like this Jizhou bottle, the excavated Sinan silver meiping has straight walls, broad, high-set shoulders, and a waisted neck with a lightly flaring lip. As noted above (nos. 2, 96, 97), traditional

Detail, no. 103

Chinese believed the phoenix to be an auspicious bird that appeared in times of peace and prosperity and that symbolized the sun and warmth, and, by

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

253

_and Partri

‘

©

hell

eo

Tortoises ’

J

nw

,

S

Hare 5 Fur

Wy

254

Virtually identical to the Harvard bottle, a meiping with two pairs of phoenixes is in The Tsui Art Foundation, Hong Kong.* In addition, a meiping bottle of matching shape in the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Collection has two phoenixes instead of four, an ascending phoenix on one side and a descending one on the other.? 1 Quoted in John Ayers et al., Chinese Porcelains: The S. C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, exh. cat., Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, 1987), pt. 2, pp. 35-36, no. 4. See Nanjing shi bowuguan [Nanjing Municipal Museum], “Jiangpu Huangyueling Nan Song Zhang Tong-

tN

association, the south. Through the Han dynasty, the phoenix was customarily depicted as one of the four divine creatures (siling) or as one of the four directional symbols (see discussion no. 2). Beginning in the Six Dynasties period, when it came to be shown independently, and continuing through the Tang, the phoenix was typically portrayed striding, with legs extended and wings outstretched. By the Northern Song, the bird was characteristically shown in flight, and by the Southern Song, it was usually paired, either with another phoenix or with a Juan, a mythical bird for which there is no English name. The differing tails clearly distinguish the two birds of each pair on this meiping bottle. With its long, trailing, seg-

zhi fugui mu” [The Southern Song Tomb of Zhang Tongzhi and His Wife at Huangyueling, Jiangpu], Wenwu

mented tail, the bird on the left answers to traditional

tive arts.°

Except for the lack of incised elements, the technique of decoration employed on this meiping vessel is the same as that on the previous bottle (no. 102). Bottles of this type are customarily assigned to the Southern Song period, though archaeology has yet to substantiate such attributions. The differentiation of the two birds in each pair supports a late Southern Song or Yuan date for the present bottle, however, as does the similarity of the bottle’s shape to that of the silver meiping recovered from the Sinan shipwreck. A Jizhou meiping bottle of precisely the same shape, but decorated with a branch of blossoming plum, was excavated at Yichun in Jiangxi province.’

Oo

4 (1973): 65, figs. 17, 18.

See Shen Zhongchang, “Sichuan Deyang chutu di Songdai yinqi jianjie” [A Brief Introduction to the SongPeriod Silver Vessels Unearthed at Deyang County, Sichuan],

Wenwu

11 (1961): 9, fig. 6; 49, fig. 1; Jessica

Rawson, “Song Silver and its Connexions with Ceram-

ics,” Apollo, vol. 120, no. 269 (July 1989): 23, ire. 13,

WN

4 See Munhwa kongbobu, Munhwajae kwanriguk, Sinan haejé yumul, vol. 1, p. 168, no. 224.

Nn

descriptions of the phoenix; though otherwise identical, the bird on the right has a scrolling tail, which might identify it as either a huang (female phoenix) or a Luan. Meaning “phoenix,” the Chinese word fenghuang comprises two syllables, with feng referring to the male and huang to the female. By the late fourteenth century, when the phoenix had come to symbolize both the empress and the yin, or female, forces of the universe,> male and female phoenixes were not only shown in pairs, but were clearly differentiated by their tails: the male’s boasted five major segments while the female’s included only two. Though its tail sports just four trailing segments, the left bird of each pair on this bottle is the clear model for the feng, or male phoenix, represented on imperial blue-andwhite porcelains of the late fourteenth and early fift teenth century; the bird on the right is probably the forerunner of the huang, or female phoenix, portrayed on those same porcelains. If the birds do indeed represent male and female, the decorative scheme featured here reflects an early interest in the yin-yang pairing of complementary opposites that became a popular feature of Ming and Qing decora-

Counterpart to the phoenix, the dragon (long) symbolized the emperor and the yang, or male, forces of the universe. See discussion in Mowry, China’s Renaissance in Bronze, pp. I13—14, no. 21.

7 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 36. 8 See The Tsui Art Foundation, Gems of Chinese Art: Selections from The Tsui Art Foundation, exh. cat., Empress

Palace Museum of Singapore (Hong Kong, 1992), n.p., no. $9. g9 Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Collection number 5248.

104 MEIPING

BOTTLE

STYLIZED

PLUM

WITH BLOsSsoMm

DECOR

Southern Song to Yuan period, 13th—14th century Jizhou ware: ivory white stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration reserved in the biscuit against the dark brown glaze From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 28.2 cm; Diam.

15.9 cm

The Saint Louis Art Museum, Bequest of Samuel C.

Davis

[947:1940]

Identical in shape to the previous meiping from the Harvard collections, this meiping bottle has steeply

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

255

104

pitched, almost vertical walls that rise from the

leaving the reserved decoration. The bottle was fired

ders, where they turn in to continue their ascent to the waisted neck with its thickened lip. Its outer wall lightly beveled, the thick-walled footring has a flat

The stylized plum blossoms on this well-known meiping bottle from The Saint Louis Art Museum are closely related to those on the conical bowl with papercut decoration from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (no. 101). The use of cut-paper stencils not only facilitated the replication of design elements, but permitted the same patterns to be used on ceramics with papercut decoration and on those with glaze-resist decoration. Margaret Medley and Mary Gardner Neill have suggested that a sharp fingernail or pointed tool was

slightly flared foot to the high-set, nearly flat shoul-

bottom; the broad, flat base is shallow and counter-

sunk. The semilustrous dark brown glaze that covers the base and exterior of the bottle extends into the interior of the neck, but leaves the bottom of the footring and the interior of the bottle unglazed; the

exposed body clay fired off-white. Reserved in white against the dark glaze, twenty-four stylized plum blossoms, each with five petals and five glaze dots to mark the stamens and pistils, embellish the bottle’s exterior. The regularly spaced plum blossoms were arranged as if laid out on a grid: in terms of horizontal orientation, they form six registers of four blossoms each; in terms of vertical orientation, they form

eight columns of three blossoms each. The bottle was wheel-thrown in sections that were luted together after drying; once the vessel had been assembled, the

twenty-four discrete stencils of cut paper that imparted the plum-blossom design were affixed to its surface, and it was immersed foot-first in the glaze slurry; the bottom of its footring was then immediately wiped free of glaze. When the glaze had stabilized but was still moist, the stencils were removed,

256

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

right side up in its saggar.

used to remove the stencils from the surface, as indi-

cated by the small nicks that often interrupt the glaze around the blossoms, and that occasionally penetrate into the exposed body clay.’ They further state that the blurred blossom that appears in the lowest register on this bottle’s back face resulted from the premature removal of the stencil;* in fact, it is more

likely that the stencil was improperly adhered to the vessel surface, and thus allowed the glaze to seep underneath when the bottle was immersed in the slurry. Differing from the previous bottles (nos. 102, 103), this meiping has the details of its decorative scheme dotted in glaze rather than painted in ironbearing slip. The absence of slip allowed the potters

to leave the resist-decorated areas completely unglazed, thus avoiding both the added labor of apply-

3 See Hughes-Stanton and Kerr, Kiln Sites of Ancient China, pp.

38, 54,

143, no. 279.

ing a second glaze and the incompatibilities and re-

site.» Related bottles, also with resist blossoms, are

in the Meiyintang Collection® and The Baltimore

Museum

CD oak

5—

oO

< a OS

—

NL 5)

ij

WN

} = oQ C. D

—

Cc

o. QO. oe= Cy

—

oS

(9 .v2 QD < S

Wa—

dQ

—

pe)

or oO

LA

Nn

Pp. 49-so.

See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, pp. 280-81, no. §21. See Frances Klapthor, Chinese Ceramics from the Collection of The Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, 30-77,

1993), pp.

TO, 2%.

of Art;’ in an unusual variation, the blos-

soms on the Metyintang bottle have six petals each. PUBLISHED: St. Louis Art Museum, “The Samuel C. Davis Collection of Chinese Ceramics,” p. 17, no. 57; Medley, Ytian Porcelain and Stoneware, p. 128 and n.p., pl. 1128; Mar-

garet Medley, The Chinese Potter: A Practical History of Chinese Ceramics (New York, 1976), pp. 161-62, fig. 122; Bickford, Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice, pp. 200-202, fig. 86; 277, no. 61. I Medley,

ciqi,” n.p., pl. 4, no. 2; Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 66.

NJ

sultant firing flaws that often arise when two different glazes overlap (see discussion no. 103). Sherds from similarly decorated vessels have been found at the Yonghe kiln site. In discussing a bottle of slightly differing shape, but with similar glazeresist plum blossoms recovered in Nanchang, Jiangxi province,* Chen Boquan notes that Jizhou bottles with decoration of this type rarely occur at the kiln

Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, p. 128; Mary Gard-

ner Neill, “The Flowering Plum in the Decorative Arts,” in Bickford, Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice, pp. 200-202.

2 Ibid.; for an illustration of the blurred blossom, see Medley, Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p., pl. 112B.

Loe MEIPING DECOR

BOTTLE

WITH

STYLIZED

FLORAL

Southern Song to Yuan period, 13th—r4th century Jizhou ware: ivory white stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration reserved in the biscuit against the dark brown glaze From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 28.4 cm; Diam.

16.0 cm

The Scheinman Collection

[120]

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

257

Like those of the previous bottles (nos. 103, 104), the walls of this meiping rise steeply from the subtly flaring foot to the broad, high-set shoulder, where they constrict to form the lightly indented neck with its rolled lip. The short, thick-walled footring has a flat bottom; the broad, flat base is shallow and counter-

sunk. The black-coffee brown glaze that covers the bottle’s base and exterior also coats the interior of the neck, but leaves the bottom of the footring and the interior of the vessel unglazed; the exposed body clay fired off-white. Reserved in white against the dark glaze, three evenly spaced medallions with openwork designs emblazon the upper portion of the bottle’s exterior; at the heart of each hexagonal medallion are two small peony blossoms, one right side up, the other upside down. Virtually identical to those on the previous vessel (no. 104) and also reserved in white, three small stylized plum blossoms appear around the shoulder, alternating with the large abstract medallions. This meiping bottle was turned on the potter’s wheel in sections that were luted together after drying. Once the vessel had been assembled, the six individual stencils of cut paper necessary to create the decoration were affixed to its surface, and it was immersed foot-first in the glaze slurry, after which the bottom of its footring was wiped free of glaze. When the glaze had stabilized but was still moist, the stencils were removed to

show the reserved decoration. The bottle was fired right side up in its saggar. Each of the three large medallions 1s quadrilaterally symmetrical—that is, not only is the top half a mirror image of the bottom, but the night half is a mirror image of the left—suggesting that the stencil was made by folding the paper and then cutting it with a pair of scissors. Like the previous bottle (no. 104), this unusual meiping from the Scheinman Collection relies upon dots of glaze for the interior details of its decorative scheme rather than upon brushstrokes painted in iron-bearing slip. The use of glaze alone in creating the details permitted the potters to dispense with the clear glaze that they typically applied over slip-painted details (compare nos. 102, 103). The clearly visible rilling marks in the bottle’s unglazed portions indicate that the body clay has not been coated with white slip. A typical Jizhou form, bottles of this shape frequently turn up at the Yonghe kiln site;" bottles with this decorative scheme, however, are relatively rare. In terms of decoration, this bottle’s closest relative 1s

the long-necked bottle in The Art Institute of Chicago (no. 106). p. 50.

258

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

106 VASE AND

WITH

Mock

STYLIZED

RING

FLORAL

HANDLES DECOR

Southern Song to Yuan period, 13th—1r4th century Jizhou ware: ivory white stoneware with appliqué handles and with dark brown glaze, the decoration reserved in the biscuit against the dark brown glaze From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 21.0 cm; Diam.

10.2 cm

The Art Institute of Chicago, Bequest of Russell Tyson [1964.762]

This elegant changjing ping vase shares the same basic pear shape as the related ower vase from the Scheinman Collection (no. 102). Rising from the short, circular foot, the walls bulge outward, turn in-

ward to define the attenuated globular body, and then culminate in the elongated, lightly bowed neck, with its thickened, square lip. The short, lightly splayed footring has a flat bottom and relatively thick

walls set at an angle; the broad, shallow base is flat. A

pair of appliqué mock ring handles adorns the shoulder, appearing one on either side. The dark brown glaze that covers the vase’s exterior extends into the interior of the neck and onto portions of the footring’s outside wall, but leaves the vessel’s interior and base unglazed; the exposed body clay fired off-white. Reserved in white against the dark glaze, two starshaped medallions, each with six points and openwork designs, adorn the container portion of the vessel, one medallion gracing the front face, the other the back. Resembling a snowflake, an abstract form—perhaps a stylized flower or hibiscus leaf— appears at the center of each medallion. The vase was wheel-thrown in sections that were luted together after drying. Once the vase had been assembled, the molded ring handles were set in place and two starshaped stencils of cut paper were affixed to the exterior surface, after which the vase was dipped in the glaze slurry; when the glaze had stabilized but was still moist, the stencils were removed, leaving the

reserved decoration. The vase was fired nght side up in its saggar. Like the Scheinman Collection example (no. 102), this vessel no doubt served as a vase for cut flowers, perhaps in association with a ding-shaped censer (compare no. 109). The thickened, square lip and mock ring handles unmistakably link this vase to Song bronzes’ and, by extension, to vessels made during China’s great Bronze Age (see discussion no. 102).

Beginning in the ninth century, the Chinese entered a period of cultural self-examination that lasted

Photograph © 1995, The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reserved.

In general, the turn to antiquity for inspiration manifested itself more in the celadons and other light-glazed ceramics than in the dark-glazed wares, perhaps because the latter were so strongly allied with the lacquer tradition, which, during the Song, showed little involvement with ancient forms and decorative styles. This vase from The Art Institute of Chicago, the ding-shaped Jizhou censer from The Cleveland Museum of Art (no. 109), and the shallow segmented Ding dish from the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection (no. 19) number among the rare dark-glazed ceramics that display solid connections to the bronze tradition. Like those on the previous bottle (no. ros), the star-shaped medallions on this vase are quadrilaterally symmetrical, indicating that the stencil was likely made by first folding and then cutting the paper. Virtually always employing dots of glaze rather than brushstrokes of rust brown slip for their interior embellishment, decorative schemes of this type lack a coating of clear glaze over the resist-created areas, relying upon contrasts of both color and texture for aesthetic effect. 1

See Mowry,

China’s Renaissance in Bronze, Pp. 28, mo.

40, no. 6; Kerr,

Later Chinese Bronzes, pp. 25, fig.

3°

14

(left); 40, fig. 27 (center). 106

well into the Song and that sought to define Chinese culture by separating native elements from the numerous foreign elements that had been introduced through trade over the Silk Route during the Six Dynasties and Tang periods. Antiquity—specifically, the ancient Bronze Age (17th century B.c.—A.D. 22 I),

that hallowed, formative era of Chinese culture that gave birth to Confucius (Kong Qiu; 551-479 BC.), Laozi (Li Er; c. 571-477 B.c.), and other honored

cultural figures—served as the standard in identifying things Chinese. Antiquarian interests fired an appreciation of Bronze Age objects, which led to the formation of collections of ancient bronzes and jades in the Northern Song. The literati of the day not only collected ancient bronzes, but used them as incense

burners and flower vases on special occasions; realizing that too frequent use would ruin their prized antiquities, they sought newly made vessels of similar shape and decoration in bronze and ceramic ware, encouraging both the renaissance in bronze and the taste for archaism that is a hallmark of later Chinese culture. In shunning the recent past in favor of the ancient, the people of Song sparked a renaissance that found expression in philosophy, music, epigraphy, painting, and the three-dimensional arts, and that is akin in spirit to the Italian Renaissance.”

2 For additional information on this phenomenon, see Mowry,

China’s Renaissance in Bronze, pp. 911.

hoy CONICAL

BOWL

DECORATION

WITH

OF

THREE

LEAVES

Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Jizhou ware: ivory white stoneware with dark brown glaze, the glaze with kiln transmutations From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 4.8 cm; Diam.

15.1 cm

The Art Institute of Chicago, Bequest of Russell Tyson

[1964.840]

Of flattened V-shape, this conical pie-type bowl has thin straight walls that rise from the small circular foot. Triangular in section, the round-bottomed footring descends from a narrow horizontal ledge on

the bowl’s underside; the shallow base is flat. The

dark brown glaze that coats the bow] inside and out stops in an even edge just above the foot; the exposed body clay on the bowl’s underside fired offwhite. Imprints of three barbed leaves —in small,

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

259

Photograph ‘© 1995, The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reserved.

medium, and large sizes—appear in transparent golden amber on the bowl’s interior, each leaf with

stem and veining; the opaque dark brown glaze covering the remainder of the interior displays tortoiseshell markings in transparent dark amber glaze. This bowl was turned on the potter’s wheel, perhaps with the aid of a hump mold, as suggested by the small, crisply defined, buttonlike floor. When the bowl had dried, three leaves were affixed to its interior, after

which the bowl was immersed in the glaze slurry; once the glaze had stabilized, a paste of wood- or bamboo ash mixed with water was probably splashed on the bowl’s interior to impart the tortoiseshell effect. Following another period of drying, the bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. Called muye wenyang wan or shuye tuyang wan in Chinese, each name meaning “tree-leaf-pattern bowls,” bowls with leaf decoration rank among the most celebrated products of the Jizhou kilns. Such decoration appears on bowls of conical and hemispherical shape (no. 108), but seldom occurs on those of yankou wan form. Most bowls with such decoration sport a single leaf, typically featuring it at the bowl’s center, but occasionally displaying it on a side wall. A few examples boast multiple leaves: witness this bowl from The Art Institute of Chicago and the almost identical one in the Baur Foundation,’ each of which has three leaves, or the closely related bowl in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University, which has five.” In rare instances, the multiple leaves

260

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

may issue from a single stem.? In shape, the leaves range from simple deltoid (no. 108) to lightly barbed; in color, they vary from golden amber to pale yellow (no. 108). The leaves generally appear within a matrix of dark brown glaze; in rare instances, including this bowl from Chicago, the glaze surrounding the

leaves may show tortoiseshell markings in transparent

dark amber glaze (compare nos. 87, 88). Such decoration was apparently created by affixing a leaf (or, in some cases, several leaves) to the interior of a bowl before immersing it in the standard slurry used for the dark brown glaze at the Jizhou kilns.* In the heat of the kiln, the chemicals naturally present in the leaf reacted with the glaze, robbing it of its dark brown color and rendering it transparent. The chemical reactions were presumably identical to those that occurred in Jizhou wares that employed wood- or bamboo ash in the creation of the decoration, from those with tortoiseshell markings (nos. 87, 88, 90-92) to those with painted motifs (nos. 89, 93—

95) and papercut designs (nos. 96-101). Although modern sources sometimes state that leaves from the zhe tree (Cudrania tricuspidata) were used to create the leaf decoration,°* the range of shapes suggests that leaves from several types of trees must have been used. Knowing that burned plant material could induce kiln transmutations in dark glazes, potters at the Jizhou kilns may have developed the techniques for creating leaf decoration through conscious

5 Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di cigi, p. 30. 6. Seeabid., mpi, fig: 7.

Co

7 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 85. Unpublished.

9 See Trubner, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period through Ch’ien Lung, p. 87, no. 212.

10 Unpublished; Royal Ontario Museum accession number 994.1I.1. view,

no.

11 Unpublished; Los Angeles County Museum of Art acces-

107. Photograph © 1995, The Art Institute of

Chicago. All Rights Reserved.

sion number §8.49.5.

experimentation; on the other hand, they might have discovered them by chance, observing the happy results when a leaf fell unnoticed onto a bowl as it was being glazed and accompanied it into the kiln. In any event, the Jizhou potters were the only ones to exploit the simple, ubiquitous tree leaf as a vehicle for decorating their pots. Bowls with leaf decoration first appeared during the Southern Song, and presumably continued to be produced into the Yuan. Present evidence does not

permit periodization of the wares; by tradition, such

bowls are assigned to leaf bowls have been site,° including some toiseshell markings in

the Southern Song. Numerous recovered at the Yonghe kiln with transparent amber torthe dark brown glaze matrix.”

In addition to the bowls cited above, there are re-

Collection;® the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri;? the Royal Ontario Museum,

Toronto;"° the Los Angeles County Museum of

the

1 See Medley, Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p., pl. 110A. 2 See Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p. (but opposite p. 113), color pl.J. 3 See Tokyo kokunitsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 145, no. 211.

4 Most authors agree that leaf decoration was produced in this general manner, though they disagree on the use of fresh leaves versus dried ones, on the possible use of slip, and on other small points. For various points of view, see Ye, Zhongguo gutaoci kexue gianshuo, p. $7; Jiang,

Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di cigi, pp. 30-31; Chen, Wang Liying, “Jizhouyao di zhuangshi yishu” [The Art of Decorating Jizhou Wares], Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 4 (1983): 18; Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-

chou,” pp. 56-57; Medley, Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware,

pp. 126-27.

of Fine Arts accession number 50.2014; see

Tseng and Dart, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the

Museum of Fine Arts, vol. 2, n.p., no. 131.

13 See Wirgin, “Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-chou,” n.p., pl. ra—b. 14 See Tokyo kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten, p. 144, no. 210; Koyama, fig. 47.

Temmoku, p. 114,

1§ The Jiangxi Provincial Museum bowl was excavated in Nanchang, Jiangxi province; see Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 76.

108 SMALL

TEA

INDENTED

lated pieces in the Dr. and Mrs. Marvin L. Gordon

Art;"' the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;'? the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm; Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka;'4 and the Jiangxi Provincial Museum."

/ Museum

rH i)

Profile

BOWL LIP

WITH

AND

LEAE

DECOR

Southern Song period, 12th-13th century Jizhou ware: off-white stoneware with dark brown glaze, the glaze with kiln transmutations From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province H. 4.8 cm; Diam.

11.3 cm

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,

Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane

Acquisition of Oriental Art

[1992.73]

Fund for the

This hemispherical tea bowl has organically rounded walls that spring from the small circular foot and rise to the vertical lip with its indented rim. Triangular in section, the round-bottomed footring has walls of irregular thickness; the shallow base is flat. A dark brown glaze that appears bluish black covers the bowl inside and out, stopping in an even edge a quarter of an inch above the foot. A single pale yellow deltoid leaf adorns the bowl’s interior, its base and stem overlapping the center point, its tip rising midway to the rim. Probably unintended, a halo of light blue rings the bowl’s interior, just below the lip. The unglazed body clay on the underside fired offwhite. The bowl was wheel-turned, its footring and base trimmed with a knife. Once the bowl had dried,

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

261

Closely related hemispherical tea bowls with leaf decor have been recovered at the Yonghe kiln site. Others are in the Shanghai Museum;* the Minneapolis Institute of Arts;> the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection:° and the Simon Kwan Collec-

tN

kX

tion, Hong Kong.’

Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciqi, p. 30. Ibid.

Songdai Jizhouyao ciqi,” n.p., pl. 5, no. 3; Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, iat. HG, 65. 4 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 69. 5 Unpublished; Minneapolis Institute of Arts accession number 74.26.

108

6 Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection number 6010.

7 See Hong Kong Museum of Art, Song Ceramics from the

a leaf was affixed to its interior and it was immersed rim-first in the glaze slurry; small smudges and fingernail impressions at the glaze edge reveal the points where the potter held the bowl during apphication. Following another period of drying, the bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. The decoration in leaf bowls generally falls into one of two categories: it may be subtle, appearing pale and gossamer-thin, as it does in this example from the Harvard University Art Museums, or it may be bold, appearing thick and golden, as it does in the previous bowl from The Art Institute of Chicago (no. 107). In bowls of subtle type, the chemicals in the leaf seem to have spawned a yellow leaf-shaped haze, complete with stem and veining, within the glaze. In bowls with more emphatic decoration, the chemicals rendered the dark brown glaze atop the leafa transparent amber; because the amber glaze appears over the off-white stoneware body, the design appears golden. In such pieces, the amber glaze typically exhibits a mottled appearance, the result of crawling and pooling in the kiln (compare no. 89). It has been suggested that the leaf may have been favored as decoration for tea bowls because it recalled the leaves from which tea itself was prepared." It has been further suggested that the many Chan (Zen) monks who must have used such bowls may have found the naturalism of the decoration especially to their liking.* While both suggestions doubtless hold a measure of truth, it may have been the sheer beauty of the magically realistic decoration alone that vaulted such bowls to popularity in the Southern Song.

262.

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Kwan

Collection, pp. 384-85, no. 174.

TOY DING-SHAPED

TRIPOD

CENSER

Southern Song to Yuan period, 13th—14th century Jizhou ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze From the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province Reportedly excavated in Zhejiang province H. 14.0 cm; Diam.

10.5 cm

Copyright © The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1995, Sundry Purchase Fund [69.66]

The circular, cushion-shaped container of this stout incense burner rests on three flat-bottomed legs of truncated conical form. The lightly inclined neck rises from the shoulder, a well-defined angle clearly distinguishing neck from shoulder; convex in section, a horizontal lip crowns the neck. Because the

interior of the container flows into the hollows of the legs, three concavities punctuate the floor. A dark brown glaze covers the censer’s exterior, including its underside but excluding the bottoms of its legs. Although it coats the lip, the glaze stops in an irregular edge around the interior of the neck, leaving the interior of the censer unglazed. The exposed body clay fired buff. This censer might have been shaped in a mold or it might have been turned on the wheel in sections that were luted together after drying. Once the fully shaped piece had dried, it was dipped legsfirst in the glaze slurry, after which the bottoms of

LOQ

the feet were immediately wiped free of glaze. Following another period of drying, it was fired right side up in its saggar. The Chinese had burned incense at least as early as the Shang dynasty, and by Warring States and Han times had created specialized incense burners. Known as boshanlu, such censers usually had a cuplike container set atop a slender tubular stalk anchored in a shallow, saucer-shaped basin that often had a coiled dragon on its floor; a perforated, conical cover in the form of a soaring mountain peak completed the composition." As incense burned in the container, smoke emerged through the perforations in the cover, hovering like mist about a mountaintop. The popularity of boshanlu censers declined with the collapse of the Han. With the rise of Buddhism during the centuries following, two new types of censers appeared for use in Buddhist ceremonies: one type, which had a circular, bowl-shaped container

and a long straight handle, was carried in processions,

as indicated by wall paintings at Dunhuang and by illustrations in woodblock-printed books; the other type, which was for use on altars, as depicted in similar books, wall paintings, and sutra frontispieces, had a circular, basinlike container that was set atop a ring of tall legs—usually five legs in the form of lions’ paws—and that was surmounted by a tall, pierced, domed cover.~ The late Tang and early Song periods witnessed the introduction of another censer shape: a vessel with a deep cylindrical container resting on a flaring pedestal base with a wide horizontal rim at the mouth (compare no. 30). Several variations on that

shape evolved during the Song, some with naturalis-

tic covers 1n the form of ducks, lions, and other

animals,’ others with openwork covers of geometric design.* The wide-lipped censers doubtless served both religious and secular worlds, as did those with naturalistic and openwork covers.° With the rediscovery of antiquity in the Northern Song (see discussion no. 106), well-to-do Chinese began to collect ancient bronze vessels, appropriating ding tripods, gui bowls, and cylindrical zun wine containers as incense burners, and gu beakers and trumpet-mouthed zun vessels as flower vases on special occasions. The collectors of Song and later periods understood that too frequent use would ruin their ancient bronzes, so they commissioned new censers in ancient styles, some in bronze and some in glazed ceramic ware. By Yuan and early Ming times it was thought that censers, vases, and flower pots of bronze were best suited for the winter months and ones of ceramic ware for the summer months, necessitating the alternation of bronze and ceramic forms with the rotation of the seasons.° Termed xianglu in Chinese, censers with a compressed globular body, well-articulated neck and lip, and three legs derive from ancient bronze ding vessels, which in the Shang and Western Zhou periods were used mainly for boiling, simmering, and stewing various grains.’ Such tripod vessels rank among the oldest bronze shapes, with clear antecedents in Neolithic pottery. The most favored of all Chinese bronzes, tripod vessels were widely imitated in the decorative arts of the Song and later periods.

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

263

(flourished 1387-99) noted in

his Gegu yaolun (The Essential Criteria of Antiquities) of 1388: “[in earliest times] there were no incense burners.... Ancient vessels used as incense burners today were sacrificial vessels and not [real] incense burners.”® Later imitations, such as the present ding-

See Mowry, Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, p. 52 (1979.109); Wen Fong, ed., The Great Bronze Age of China: An Exhibition from the People’s Republic of China, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum

eH

antiquarian Cao Zhao

Porcelains in the Chinese Ceramic Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ph.D. diss., pp. 461-62.

of Art (New York,

gi [Crafts: Gold, Silver, Glass, and Enamel], Zhongguo

shaped censer, were made as substitutes for the

bo

See Hasebe, Sd, p. 46, no. 38; Elinor L. Pearlstein and

James T. Ulak, Asian Art in The Art Institute of Chicago

(Chicago, 1993), p. 60; Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 128, nos. 121, 122; Gyllensvard, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain, p. 97, no. 90.

censer, two candlesticks, and two flower vases—

lection, vol. 1, p. 197, no. 345; Gyllensvard, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain, p. 95, no. 89; Tseng and Dart, The

Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts,

Boston, vol. 2, nos. 64-65.

Provincial Museum:;!° a related censer in the Hon-

olulu Academy of Arts has longer legs and two squared handles that rise from the lip.’’

PUBLISHED: The Cleveland Museum of Art, “The Year in Review for 1969,” exh. cat., in Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 57, no. I (1970): no. 225; “Art of Asia Re-

cently Acquired by American Museums, 1969,” Archives of

Asian Art 24 (New York,

264

1970-71):

107; Kleinhenz, Pre-Ming

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

For information on censers in China, see Mowry, China’s Renaissance in Bronze, pp. 23-27, no. 2; 67-73, no. 12;

146-49, no. 29; 180-85, no. 38.

Robert D. Mowry, “Catalogue,” in Chu-tsing Li and

James C. Y. Watt, eds., The Chinese Scholar’s Studio: Ar-

zhou,!° Jun,"! Ru,'? Longquan,"? and guan'* wares

tistic Life in the Late Ming Period, An Exhibition from the Shanghai Museum, exh. cat., The Asia Society (New 1987), pp. 177, no. 62; 189-90, nos. 82-83.

York,

OO

7 K. C. Chang, “Ancient China,” in K. C. Chang, ed.,

Food in Chinese Culture (New Haven and London, 1977), Pp. 34. Sir Percival David, ed. and trans., Chinese Connoisseurship: The Ko Ku Yao Lun, The Essential Criteria of Antiquities (New York and Washington, D. C., 197 i), 6. Taping Chinese text, see p. 338, 7a.

\O

made in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Few kilns specializing in dark-glazed wares during the Song, Jin, and Yuan periods bowed to the antiquarian taste of the day; in that context, their dark brown censers and vases mark the Jizhou kilns as a notable exception to the rule. The stoneware body of this handsome censer from The Cleveland Museum of Art resembles that of other wares from the Jizhou kilns. Its dark brown glaze is identical to that employed on all Jizhou wares, from those with tortoiseshell markings to those with papercut and glaze-resist designs; it differs from most Jizhou wares in that its glaze has not been manipulated for decorative effect, so it appears an even dark monochrome brown. Similar vessels have been recovered at the Yonghe kiln site.'5 An almost identical censer is in the Jiangxi

See Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 147, fig. 194; d’Argence, Chinese Ceramics in the Avery Brundage Collection, p. 93,

no. 41; Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Meiyintang Col-

”

appeared in the Northern Song period, as did those comprising three pieces—a censer and either two candlesticks or two flower vases. As indicated by illustrations in woodblock-printed books, such sets were popular in the Southern Song and Yuan,” probably for secular as well as for religious use. The best-known ceramic censers in the form of ancient bronze vessels are those in light-glazed Yao-

ON

—a

meishu quanji [A Compendium of Chinese Art] series,

vol. 3, pt. 10 (Beijing, 1987), p. 28, no. 58.

aN

ancient vessels, which were considered too precious to be used on a regular basis. In Song times, a ding-shaped incense burner might have been used independently, but it might also have been used in association with two pearshaped flower vases of a type also inspired by ancient bronzes (see nos. 102, 106). Probably introduced by the Buddhist church, altar sets comprising five pieces

1980), p. 298, no. 95.

See Yang Boda, ed., Gongyi meishu bian: Jin yin boli falang

N

Collectors clearly realized that they were using the ancient bronzes for purposes very different from those for which they were made, as the early Ming

See Machida shiritsu kokusai hanga bijutsukan [Machida International Print Museum], Chiigoku kodai hanga ten: Chiigoku hanga 2000 nen ten, dai san bu [Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Woodblock Prints: Third Section of an Exhibition of 2000 Years of Chinese Printing], exh. cat.,

Machida International Print Museum (Machida, Tokyo, 1988), p. 251.

10 See Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 105, fig. 122; d’Argence,

Chinese Ceramics in the Avery Brundage Collection, p. 73, pl. 31; Feng et al., Zhongguo taoct shi, n.p., monochrome pl. 27, no. 4.

11 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, pp. 222-23, nos. 389-91, 394; Tregear, Song Ce-

ramics, p. 134, fig. 163; Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware,

p. 85, pl. 64; Medley,

pls. 814, 82.

Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p.,

12 See Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, p. 96, pl. 76. 13 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Metyintang Collection, vol. 1, pp. 302-3, nos. 565-67; Gray, Sung Porcelain and

Stoneware, n.p. (but opposite p. 161), color pl. P; Medley, Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p., pl. 77.

14

See Gray, Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, p. 140, Pl. Lie Tregear, Song Ceramics, pp. 136, fig. 174; 138, fig. 187; Medley, Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p., pl. 76B.

Is See Jiang, Jizhouyao: Jianzhi wenyang tieyin di ciql, N.p., fig. 41 (center). 16 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 32; also see n.p., no. 44.

17 Unpublished; Honolulu Academy of Arts accession num-

ber 1611.1.

110 SMALL

JAR

WITH

WILLOW-BASKET

ROLLED

LIP

AND

WEAVE

AND

Boss

WITH DECOR

Southern Song to Yuan period, 13th—r4th century Ganzhou ware: light gray stoneware, the unglazed exterior with combed and appliqué decoration, the interior with russet-surfaced dark brown glaze From the kilns at Qili, Ganzhou, Jiangxi province H. 9.4 cm; Diam.

11.6 cm

The Scheinman Collection

[85]

This small jar has a globular container from which the short, lightly waisted, vertical neck organically

rises; framing the mouth, a thick, rolled lip caps the neck. The flattened bottom permits the jar to stand stably on its own, despite its lack of a footring. The russet-skinned, dark brown glaze that coats the

vessel’s interior extends over the lip, but otherwise

leaves the jar’s exterior unglazed; the exposed body clay fired mauve brown. An incised pattern of vertically oriented, concentric arcs embellishes the exterior of the jar’s spherical container, imparting the

look of a basket woven of branches; set between

borders of parallel horizontal lines, twenty-six lustrous pearly white bosses encircle the indented neck. This jar was turned on the potter’s wheel: once the moist clay had stabilized, the borders around the neck and the concentric arcs on the container were scored using a small comblike implement. When the jar had dried, dark brown glaze was applied to its interior; following another period of drying, a wash of iron-rich slip was applied atop the glaze to induce the formation of the russet skin, and twenty-six dots of opaque white glaze were touched on the neck: the russet skin’s variations in thickness impart a variegated appearance to the glaze. Once dry, the jar was fired right side up in its saggar. Because they range in size from small to large, jars of this type are often called “rice measures” in Eng-

lish, but their exact function remains unknown;

the

various names employed by contemporary Chinese authors to identify such jars reflect this situation: guan (short-necked jar), hu (long-necked jar), fu (caul-

dron), dou (a Chinese peck, or measure), and even bo

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

265

were imitated in ceramic ware by the Five Dynasties period, as witnessed by the white-ware stemcup excavated from a mid-tenth-century tomb near Hefei, Anhui province, in 1956.° Perhaps because true

basket-weave designs are difficult to imitate in ceramic ware, potters reduced the design to the easily created comb markings seen on this jar. The origin of the bosses remains uncertain, but they might descend from the star- or flower-shaped bosses that were applied to some tenth- and eleventh-century northern white-ware jars of drum form to simulate the nails used to fasten the drum skin to the drum core.# Willow-basket jars of comparatively squat proportions had appeared by the late eleventh century, as evinced by the porcelain example excavated in 1986 in Quanjiao county, Anhui province, from the tomb of Zhang Zhige, who died in 1089 and was buried in 1092. Also with an unglazed exterior, the porcelain jar has a pattern of concentric arcs on its container and white bosses around its neck.> Such jars contin-

ued to be produced during the Southern Song and Yuan in a variety of wares: buff earthenware examples with medium brown elaze® are known, as are fully glazed gingbai examples with brown dots around the neck.’ Most representative of Song and Yuan willowbasket jars, however, are those made at the Qili kiln, such as this piece from the Scheinman Collection. On the Gan River, but to the south of Ji’an and the Jizhou kilns, the Qili kiln is located in Jiangxi province, near Qili zhen in Ganzhou.° Although they yielded little information about exact dates of activity there, investigations revealed that the kiln produced black-glazed wares and qingbai-type porcelains, along with the better-known willow-basket jars with their rust brown interiors and unglazed exteriors embellished with white bosses,’ thus pinpointing this jar’s location of manufacture.

In 1973, an almost identical jar was excavated at a

Southern Song site in Dayi, Sichuan province,’” indicating that the kilns were active by the twelfth or thirteenth century. The numerous identical vessels recovered amongst the cargo of the Chinese merchant ship that sank off the coast of Sinan, Korea, 1n the early 1320s confirms that they continued to produce such jars into the fourteenth century.|

266

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Seoul;'* and the Fencheng County Museum."° PuBLISHED:

Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire, p. 85, no. 67.

The term naiding literally means “nipple” or “teat,” but in this instance it should be idiomatically translated as “boss.” 2 See Rawson, “Song Silver and its Connexions with Ceramics,” Apollo 120, n.s. no. 269 (July 1984): 19, fig. 4. See Shi Gufeng and Ma Renquan, “Hefei Xijiao Nan Tang mu qingli jianbao” [A Brief Report on the Investigation ofa Southern Tang Tomb at Xyjiao, Hefei],

ee

nament of Chinese silver by the tenth century,” and

dation, London;'* the National Museum of Korea,

ta

naiding liudou wen, or boss and willow-basket _ pattern. Basket-weave designs had become a popular or-

Wenwu cankao ziliao 3 (1958): 67, fig. 3-

4 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Metyintang Collection, vol. I, p. 194, nO. 337.

5 See Chu xian digu xingshu wenhuaju and Quanjiao xian wenhuaju [Chu County Regional Administration Cultural Bureau and Quanjiao County Cultural Bureau}, “Anhui Quanjiao Xishi Bei Song mu”

[A Northern Song

Tomb in Xishi Village, Quanjiao County, Anhui Province], Wenwu no. 6,

11 (1988): 68, Aig, 7, 00. 75 Wi, pl.'G,

6 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 104. An unpublished but virtually identical example is in the University of Michigan Museum of Art (accession number 1973/2.27).

—

wen, or cord-marked, but they more often term it

Closely related examples are in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;’” the Los Angeles County Museum of Art;"? the Percival David Foun-

See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection,

vol. I, Pp. 333, 10. 621. oo

(a small bowl, usually with incurving lip). Chinese authors sometimes refer to the decoration as sheng-

For information on the Ganzhou kilns, see Xue Qiao and Tang Changpu, “Jiangxi Ganzhou Qili zhen guci yaozhi diaocha” [Investigations at the Ancient Ceramic Kiln Site at Qili, Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province] in Zhongguo gudai

yaozhi diaocha fajue baogao ji [Collected Reports of Investigations and Excavations at Ancient Chinese Kiln Sites], Wenwu bianji weiyuanhui [Wenwu Editorial Committee] (Beijing, 1984), pp. 124-32; Xue Qiao and Chen Wenhua, “Liietan Xin’an chenchuanzhong di Qilizhenyao cigi” [A Brief Discussion of the Ceramics from the Kilns at Qili Recovered from the Sunken Ship off Sinan], in Zhongguo gudai yaozhi diaocha fajue baogao ji, pp. 133 36; Hughes-Stanton and Kerr, Kiln Sites of Ancient China, p. 50.

g See Hughes-Stanton and Kerr, Kiln Sites of Ancient China, pp. 38, 50, 141, nos. 251—S2.

to See Dayi xian wenhuaguan [Dayi County Museum], “Sichuan Dayi xian Anren zhen chutu Songdai jiaocang” [A Song-Period Trove Unearthed at Anren, Dayi County, Sichuan Province],

11

Wenwu 7 (1984): 94, fig. 13.

See Munhwa kongbobu, Munhwajae kwanriguk, Sinan haejd yumul, vol. 1, pp. 104, no. 131; 159, no. 207a-b;

Xue and Chen, “Liietan Xin’an chenchuanzhong di Qilizhenyao ciqi,” p. 134, fig. 1. 12 Metropolitan Museum accession number 1986.208.3; see Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 120,

no. 117.

13 Unpublished; Los Angeles County Museum of Art accession number M.91.233.1.

14

See Tregear, Song Ceramics, p. 194, no. 265.

Is

See ibid., p. 198, no. 268.

16 See Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 90.

itd SMALL Lip AND

AND

TEA

BOWL

WITH

DECORATION

BLOSSOMING

PLUM

INDENTED OF

CRESCENT

WHITE Moon

BRANCH

Southern Song period, 12th—13th century Nanfeng ware: light gray stoneware with decoration reserved against the medium brown glaze, the rim and reserved designs with clear glaze over white slip From the Baishe kilns in Nanfeng county, Jiangxi province H. 4.9 cm; Diam.

11.7 cm

The Scheinman Collection

[94]

Rausing from the circular foot, the rounded sides of this small tea bow] culminate in a vertical lip that is indented just below the rim. Of V-shaped section, the short footring has angled walls and a pointed bot-

tom; the flat, shallow base is countersunk. A warm

chestnut glaze covers the upper half of the exterior and all of the interior, save a band approximately a quarter of an inch in width at the rim, which is glazed in white. Reserved in white against the medium brown glaze, a plum bough with one blossom and seven buds graces the interior wall: also reserved in white, a crescent moon appears opposite the bough. The body clay exposed on the bowl’s lower portion fired a light gray. The bowl] was wheel-turned, probably with the aid of a hump mold, as indicated by the well-defined floor; the foot and base were shaped with a knife. Following a period of drying, the bowl’s interior was coated with a thin layer of white slip. The exact technique of decoration remains uncertain. It is possible, however, that once it had dried, the slip-coated bowl was immersed in the chestnut glaze, after which the interior rim was immediately wiped free of glaze. When the glaze had stabilized but was still moist, the decorative motifs may have been incised through the glaze to

reveal the white slip, after which the stamens and pistils were lightly incised in the center of the open blossom. Following another period of drying, the interior rim and decorative motifs were coated with clear glaze. The bowl was fired right side up in its saggar. Although they have traditionally been attributed to the Jizhou kilns, vessels of this type were actually

made at the Baishe kilns, which are located some

twenty miles to the southwest of Nanfeng, in northeastern Jiangxi province.’ Active throughout the Song dynasty,~ the Baishe kilns fell under the sway of nearby Jingdezhen, and produced an array of gingbaitype bowls and dishes with thin-walled, off-white bodies, transparent sky blue glazes, and incised decorative schemes. Opaque stoneware bodies distinguish Nanfeng wares from the translucent Jingdezhen porcelains, as do the coatings of white slip applied to create a snow white ground for the delicately colored

glazes; embellished rims, created with slips of con-

trasting color, further identify Nanfeng wares. Evi-

dence from the Baishe kiln site, which was investi-

gated in 1960 and again in 1979, reveals that the potters fired their vessels right side up, indicating that the rims were likely dressed to simulate gold and sil-

ver bands (compare nos. 14, 31, 32, 41, 77, 78). Best

remembered for their gingbai-type wares, the Baishe kilns also produced light gray stoneware vessels with brown and black glazes; dark pieces are typically identical to the qingbai-type pieces in shape and decoration, differing only in the color of the glaze. Reaching beyond Jingdezhen porcelains, potters at the Baishe kilns drew inspiration from many

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

267

Detail, no. 111

contemporaneous wares in creating their eclectic bowls and dishes. On first inspection, the indented lip, steeply pitched walls, and crisply defined floor would seem to link this bowl to the yankou wan-type tea bowls made at the Jizhou kilns (compare no. 96); the pointed footring and countersunk base not only distance it from the Jizhou tradition, however, but relate it to tea bowls made at the Maodian kilns in Guangze county, Fujian province, which are generally considered part of the Jian system of kilns.* In fact, the Maodian kilns produced bowls almost identical in shape to this one, with both chestnut and chocolate brown glazes; many have white rims, suggesting the likely inspiration for this bowl. If the Maodian

kilns provided

this bowl’s shape,

the Jizhou kilns likely contributed its decorative scheme. The moonlit bough of blossoming plum portrayed here clearly resembles those painted on dark-glazed Jizhou bowls such as the one from the

bottom of the rim where the clear and chestnut glazes fail to meet. The slightly grainy texture of the bowl’s interior results not from the body clay, which is smooth on the exterior, but from small lumps in the white slip, which was not properly strained before use to ensure a uniformly fine consistency. In those areas where they overlap, the not entirely compatible clear and chestnut glazes bubbled, creating turbidity within the thickened glaze ridges, and dotting their surfaces with pinprick bubble bursts. Identical bowls were recovered in the investigations at the Baishe kiln site.” Qingbai-type bowls of the same shape and decoration, but with transparent sky blue glazes were also found there;® the rims and glaze-resist decorative schemes of such gingbai-type bowls are typically dressed in golden brown. Chestnut-glazed vessels from the Baishe kilns are rare in Western collections. The R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection includes two similarly shaped, chestnut-glazed bowls; though unadorned,

each bowl has a white rim, pointed footring, and countersunk base.? A qingbai-type bowl in the Meiyintang Collection is identical to the Scheinman Collection bowl, except for its light blue glaze and caramel brown embellishments.*°

PUBLISHED: Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire, p. 85, no. 66; Klapthor, “Chinese Ceramics from the Collection of Peter and Irene Scheinman,” p. 60, fig. 19. t For information on the Baishe kilns, see Jiangxi sheng wenwu

gongzuodui and Nanfeng xian wenhuaguan

Harvard collections (no. 94); the relationship to the

[Jiangxi Provincial Antiquities Work Team and Nanfeng County Museum], “Jiangxi Nanfeng Baishe diaocha jishi” [A Detailed Record of the Investigation of the Kiln at Baishe, Nanfeng County, Jiangxi], Kaogu 3 (1985):

wares with glaze-resist decoration (compare no. 102),

China, pp. 44-45. Jiangxi sheng wenwu gongzuodui and N anfeng xian wenhuaguan, “Jiangxi Nanfeng Baishe diaocha jishi,”’ i: 292.

the latter may well have been the aesthetic model to which the potters at the Baishe kilns looked in creating white designs reserved on a dark ground.

N

222-33; Hughes-Stanton and Kerr, Kiln Sites of Ancient

ww

designs on glaze-resist-decorated Jizhou white wares is even closer.° Although the use of white slip makes the technique of decoration employed on this bowl more complicated than that on dark brown Jizhou

For information on the Maodian kilns, see Zeng Fan,

“Guangze Maodian Songdai ciyaozhi” [The Song-

The rim, crescent moon, and plum branch are not

268

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

Dynasty Kaln Site at Maodian, Guangze],

Wenwu cankao

ziliao 2 (1958): 36-37; Li Ji’an, “Fujian di Jianyaoxi heiyou chawan” [Black-Glazed Tea Bowls from the Jian System of Kilns in Fujian], in Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyod shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku: Tokubetsuten, Chado shirydkan and Fukken sho LA

hakubutsukan, pp. 272-73.

See Chad6 shirySkan and Fukken sho hakubutsukan, Karamono temmoku— Fukken sho kenyd shutsudo temmoku to Nihon

Nn

only whiter than the unglazed portions of the exterior, but they show a slight gloss wholly lacking on the outside, indicating that their exposed white slip was covered with clear glaze. In those areas where it overlaps the clear glaze—along the edges of the crescent moon and plum branch, for example, and over the tear that descends from the lip near the base of the plum branch—the chestnut glaze appears amber. Visual examination of the small rim chip confirms the presence of a thin layer of white slip over the offwhite body, as does inspection of those areas at the

Ibid., p. 225.

densei no temmoku:

Tokubetsuten, p. 83, nos.

81, 82.

For Jizhou white wares with resist and sgraffiato decora-

tion, see Zhongguo Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe,

Jizhouyao, n.p., no. 78; Bickford, Bones of Jade, Soul of Ice, pp. 202, fig. 88; 277, no. 66; Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 119, no. 116; Krahl, Chinese Ceramics

from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, p. 279, no. $16; Medley, Yiian Porcelain and Stoneware, n.p., pls. 11tA—C. 7 Jiangxi sheng wenwu gongzuodui and Nanfeng xian

wenhuaguan, “Jiangxi Nanfeng Baishe diaocha jishi,” pi. 22s.

8 See ibid., pp. 225, fig. 3, no. 14; 226, fig. 4, no. I; m.p., pl. 6, nos. 1, 2; Hughes-Stanton and Kerr, Kiln Sites of

Ancient China, pp. 45, 136, no. 222.

g Unpublished; R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection numbers 6240a—b.

10 See Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, p. 278, no. $15.

Lz MEIPING

BOTTLE

WITH

STYLIZED

LoTus

DECOR

Ming dynasty, 16th century Cizhou-type ware: light gray stoneware with medium brown glaze over white slip, the decoration incised through the glaze before firing to reveal the white slip H. 20.2 cm; Diam.

15.2 cm

The Scheinman Collection

[93]

The walls of this meiping bottle ascend from the thickened, circular foot to shape the constricted waist, then expand to form the bulging belly, and finally turn inward to define the broad, flat shoulders; the rolled lip crowning the short neck flares lightly. Triangular in section, the short footring rises in accordion-fold fashion, its two small “folds” separated by an angular indentation; the footring’s walls

are thick and its bottom is flat. The broad, flat base is

of intermediate depth. Stopping in an even edge

about one inch above the foot, the medium brown

glaze that coats the vessel extends into the interior of

the neck, but leaves the bottle’s interior and its lower

exterior unglazed; the exposed body clay fired buff. Arranged in two registers, the bottle’s sgraffiato floral decoration appears in white against the medium brown glaze; the wide frieze encircling the midsection features three stylized lotus blossoms connected by leaf scrolls, while the narrow panel around the shoulder includes three discrete lotus sprays, each with a tuliplike blossom and a scrolling stalk. Bowstring lines not only border the composition at top and bottom, but separate the two registers. The bottle was wheel-thrown in sections that were luted

together after drying. Once assembled, the bottle was coated with white slip and then, following another period of drying, immersed in the glaze slurry; smudges along the glaze’s lower edge not only indicate the points where the potter held the bottle during application, but reveal that the glaze extends approximately one-half of an inch below the edge of the shp. When the glaze had stabilized but was still moist, the potter incised the lotus decoration through the glaze to reveal the white slip. After further drying, the bottle was fired nght side up in its saggar. Native to China, the lotus was celebrated in the

ancient poetry of the Shijing, or Book of Songs, but its appearance in the visual arts had to await the coming of the Han, when it was occasionally depicted in pictorial tiles, especially in ones from Sichuan province.’ Even so, it was only with the rise of the Buddhist church in the early centuries a.p. that the lotus became a staple of Chinese art. A symbol of the church and its teachings,” the lotus figures prominently in Buddhist art, appearing in altar vases, in the hands of bodhisattvas, and, most conspicu-

ously, in the form of the bases on which deities stand or sit. In religious and secular arts alike, the lotus was regarded as an emblem of purity and perfection. One of the “flowers of the four seasons,” the lotus

symbolizes summer, standing alongside the peony, chrysanthemum, and plum, which symbolize spring,

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

269

tus also symbolizes the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which generally corresponds to August in the Gregorian calendar. The lotus had been introduced into mainstream secular arts by the Six Dynasties, appearing occasionally as decoration in fifth- and sixth-century celadon wares from the Yue kilns;? by the Tang dynasty, the lotus frequently appeared on articles of gold and silver;* and by the Song, it had become the favored decorative motif on most ceramic wares. Its popularity continued into the Ming dynasty, when it frequently embellished blueand-white porcelain. The lotus blossoms on the belly of this bottle resemble the one that adorns the curvaceous meiping bottle depicted on the large guan jar with cut-glaze figural decor from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (no. 70; see black-and-white illustration). Made by one of the many Cizhou-type kilns in northern China, this unusual meiping bottle has so far defied attempts to identify its exact kiln of manufacture. It has been placed at the end of the catalogue, seemingly grouped with wares made in Jiangxi province, both because it is chronologically the latest work in the exhibition and because it has previously

been attributed to the Jizhou kilns.°

The medium brown glaze that coats this bottle argues against an attribution to the Jizhou kilns, as do the undercoating of white slip and the sgraffiato technique employed to create the decoration. Except for their white wares, to which they applied clear or milky white glaze, potters at the Jizhou kilns used only dark brown glaze, which they manipulated for decorative effect. They used ash, perhaps with an admixture of slip, to induce amber and buff markings to form their tortoiseshell glazes (nos. 87-92), for ex-

ample, as they used ash and slip to create golden buft grounds for their papercut designs (nos. 96-101); there is no evidence, however, that they ever used medium brown glaze. In addition, because the bodies of their pots are off-white, potters at the Jizhou kilns did not apply coatings of white slip to their vessels. In terms of decorative techniques, potters there relied on stencils of cut paper to create glaze-resist designs (nos. roI—6), but they apparently did not employ the cut-glaze or sgraffiato techniques for their primary designs.° In short, there is simply no evidence—either archaeological evidence from the kilns at Yonghe or prima facie evidence from pots made there—to support the attribution of this handsome meiping bottle to the Jizhou kilns. Rather, this bottle was made at one of the

Cizhou-type kilns and represents a late manifestation of the sgraffiato technique (compare nos. 66-75). The

270

Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers

thickened foot, broad, flat shoulders, and small neck

with flaring lip link this piece to those sixteenthcentury, Cizhou-type meiping bottles with transparent turquoise glaze over slip-painted decoration, even if it is not identical to them in form.’ The thickened foot, in particular, recalls that of a Cizhou-type guan jar with cut-glaze decoration in the Museum fiir Ostasiatische Kunst, Dahlem, Berlin.® Its decorative

scheme descended from that on the large, cut-glaze jar from the Scheinman Collection (no. 69), the Berlin jar is dated by inscription to the Zhengde reign (1506-21) of the Ming dynasty, documenting the occurrence of the accentuated foot in the sixteenth century. Like that of the Berlin jar, the glaze on this bottle from the Scheinman Collection stops in an even edge above the foot. Their several similarities suggest that the Scheinman bottle and the Berlin jar might have been made at the same kiln, even if that kiln cannot yet be identified. With its broad shoulders, wasp waist, and flaring base, this bottle represents a decidedly post-Song

interpretation of the meiping shape;? in China, the

ancestors of this more voluptuous manifestation first appeared among Longquan celadons and blue-andwhite porcelains in the late Yuan and early Ming periods.'° Even if they do not pinpoint its place of manufacture, the characteristics cited in the paragraph above establish this bottle’s sixteenth-century date. More than most Ming examples, this mezping bottle anticipates the Yongzheng- and Qianlongperiod interpretations of the shape."’ PuBLISHED: pum

autumn, and winter, respectively. In addition, the lo-

Kuo, Born of Earth and Fire, p. 93, no. 73.

See Wang Zhongshu, Han Civilization (New Haven and London,

1982), p. 70, fig. 76, trans. by K. C. Chang and

collaborators; Lucy Lim et al., Stories from China’s Past: Han Dynasty Pictorial Tomb Reliefs and Archaeological Objects from Sichuan Province, People’s Republic of China, exh. cat., Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco (San Francisco, 1987), pp. 86-87, pls. 4, 5; 92-93, pl. 9.

2 The Buddha once spoke of the lotus, commenting that in the same way it could grow in sullied waters yet issue blossoms of great beauty and purity, he could live in this world yet propound teachings of great truth and profundity. Thus, the lotus became one of the most important symbols of the Buddhist church. 3 See Mino and Tsiang, Ice and Green Clouds, pp. 91, no. 30; 94-98, nos. 32-34. 4 See Gyllensvird, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, pp. 145, no. 93; 168, no. III; 192, no. 124. 5 Jason C. Kuo, ed., Born of Earth and Fire: Chinese Ceramics

from the Scheinman Collection, Studies in Chinese Art History and Archaeology series, vol. 1 (College Park, Md., 1992), Pp. 93, NO. 73.

6 Jizhou potters occasionally used the sgraffiato technique for such secondary elements as branch tips in glaze-resist designs (cat. no. 102), but apparently only when necessary to enhance elements left unclear by the glaze-resist technique.

10 Compare a Longquan celadon meiping bottle attributed to the early fifteenth century in the Idemitsu Museum, Tokyo, for example; see Trubner et al., In Pursuit of the Dragon, pp. 90-91, no. 29. Also see the pair of Xuandeperiod (1426-35), blue-and-white porcelain meiping bottles in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City,

7 See Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centures in Northern China, p. 222, fig. 287.

Missouri; in Taggart, McKenna, and Wilson, Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Mis-

8 Museum ftir Ostasiatische Kunst registration number 1969-13; see 1ibid., p. 248 (lower right illustration). 9 Though not conclusive, some evidence suggests that this interpretation of the meiping shape may have originated in Korea; admired in both China and Japan, the celadons made in Korea during the Koryé dynasty (918-1392) were exported to both countries, and may have influenced elements of the Chinese ceramic tradition. See Mary Ann Rogers, “Catalogue of the Exhibition” in Henry Trubner et al., In Pursuit of the Dragon, exh. cat., Seattle Art Museum

(Seattle, 1988), pp. 58—s9, no. 2:

souri, vol. 2, sth ed., p. 88, nos. 40-45/1, 2. Also see the

related porcelain meiping excavated from the site of the Ming imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province; in Trubner et al., In Pursuit of the Dragon, p. 50, fig. 8. Ti

See Mowry, Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, p. 83, no. 1979.189; Valenstein, A

Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p. 260, no. 262; Tokyd kokunitsu hakubutsukan, Chiigoku no toji: Tokubetsuten,

p. 236, no. 339.

Feng Xianming, “Persian and Korean Ceramics Unearthed in China,”

1986): 47-33.

Orientations, vol. 17, no. 5 (May

Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics

271

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(1986): 51-55.

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Zhuo Zhenxi and Lu Jianguo. “Yaozhouyao yizhi diaocha fajue xin shouhuo” [New Results in the Investigation and Excavation of the Kiln Site at Yaozhou]. Kaogu yu wenwu3 (1980): 54-62. Zibo shi bowuguan [Zibo Municipal Museum]. “Zibo shi Boshan dajie yaozhi” [The Boshan Avenue Kiln Site in Zibo]. Wenwu 9 (1987): 11-20 and 4o.

Selected Bibliography

279

Photographic Credits The color transparencies and black-and-white photographs reproduced in this catalogue were graciously supplied by the following: Anonymous Loan Maggie Nimkin, photographer The Art Institute of Chicago Robert Hashimoto, photographer 107

The Asia Society, New York Lynton Gardiner, photographer Asian

Art Museum

Ralph C. Marcove, M.D. Maggie Nimkin, photographer

$i, 72

DavidJ. Menke, M.D. Michael Nedzweski, photographer

58

15, 16, 18, 22, 24,

76, 80, 92, 108 7, 62, 84 a. ¥» Bey FO, 82,

Owen Murphy, photographer Michael Nedzweski, photographer

of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, Japan

The Nelson-Atkins Museum

of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

PE, I

The Newark Museum

8

The Saint Louis Art Museum

13, 68, 104

63

AI, 55, 60

Diane H. Schafer Maggie Nimkin, photographer

82

47

The Scheinman Collection

Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Bnefel Maggie Nimkin, photographer Michael Nedzweski, photographer

71 71 (back view)

The Cleveland Museum

64, 93, 109

of Art

Peggy and Dick Danziger Schecter Lee, photographer Text figure 4 (Rousmaniere essay) and

the Sze Hong Collection

4

R. Hatfield Ellsworth Private Collection Shin Hada, photographer

16; 48, $6, 57. 75,

100 Mrs. Myron S. Falk, Jr. Maggie Nimkin, photographer

280

2, 83

Text figure 2 (Rousmaniere essay)

Shin Hada, photographer

Mr. and Mrs. James E. Breece III

BLO, OF

Museum

of Art, New York

Denise and Andrew Saul

Dr. Robert Barron

Art Museum

The Metropolitan Museum

E. G. Schempf, photographer

70; 95; Lal

Denver

12, 26, 67

23, 35, 98, 106,

of San Francisco

Kazuhiro Tsuruta, photographer

Dr. and Mrs. Marvin L. Gordon

Kyoto Archaeological Research Institute, Kyoto, Japan Text figure 5 (Rousmaniere essay)

52, 74, 76 (detail), 77, 79, 80 (details), 92 (detail), 88,

89, 94, 96, 99, 103

53, 54, 66

14, 33

27A, 31, 34, 36, 37a-b, 38a, 43a-b, 44, 45a-b, 46, 49, Maggie Nimkin, photographer

Michael Nedzweski, photographer

Kazuhiro Tsuruta, photographer

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts Michael Nedzweski, photographer

Robert M. Ferris IV

6, 21, 29, 39, 59,

Maggie Nimkin, photographer AD, $0, 65, G0y 86, 87,04,

i, 0, 20, 25, AW,

102, 110, Lit, 112

Michael Nedzweski, photographer 65 (detail), 111 (detail)

27b, 38b,

Christie’s, New York

10S

The Shinkeido Collection Craig Smith, photographer

7

Mr. and Mrs. Janos Szekeres Maggie Nimkin, photographer

61, OI

Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya, Japan Text figures 1, 3 (Rousmaniere essay) University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor Patrick Young, photographer 10, 78

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