Lot Essay
Ru ware is one of the Song imperial wares and perhaps the rarest and most precious known today. According to G. St. G. Gompertz, Chinese Celadon Wares, London, 1958, p. 34, there were only 31 examples in existence in the West, among which was the present lot. The most recent publication on the subject, Wang Qingzheng et al., The Discovery of Ru Kiln--A Famous Song-ware Kiln of China, Hong Kong, 1991, Table 2, lists the known total, including those in Chinese collections, as 69, but does not include the present example, which has not been available for viewing for many years, nor a shallow dish, similar in shape and size, in the Percival David Foundation, London. The David example was included in the exhibition, Korean and Chinese Ceramics, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1976, and illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 28, p. 16.
Other similar dishes, all about 17 cm. diameter, are illustrated in Wang, et. al., op. cit.. Four are in the Shanghai Museum, one of which has five spur marks (pl. 25-28), one in the Tianjin Museum (pl. 72) and one in Japan, formerly in the Kawabata collection (pl. 70). There is also one in The Saint Louis Art Museum, illustrated in the Handbook of the Collection, The Saint Louis Art Museum, 1975, p. 286 and in Mino, Yutaka and Tsiang, Katherine R., Ice and Green Clouds: Traditions of Chinese Celadon, Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1986, fig. 65a, p. 166.
Generally, it may be said that ruyao is a thin-bodied ware with a rather thick, semi-opaque glaze of pale-blue or sky-blue color and a scale-like craquelure. In places where the glaze is thinner, a light pinkish tinge is apparent. To enable the entire vessel to be covered with glaze, the ware was usually fired on small supporting spurs which left sesame seed-shaped marks on the base, usually three or five in number, and which show the pale ash-gray color of the body quite clearly.
Ru ware is known from historical sources to have been made in the late Northern Song period and to have been greatly admired. According to Jiu Hua in Tanzhai Biheng, ru was the finest celadon made in the empire until the capital established its own kiln in the Zhengde era (1111-1118) and named the ware produced guan, or official, ware. Zhou Hui of the Southern Song Dynasty, in his Qingbo Zazhi, wrote that agate was used in the manufacture of ru ware glaze. Refer to Wang, et al., op. cit., pp. 86 and 111.
The recent discovery of what is believed to be the site of the ru kilns has added to the previously meager store of knowledge and sparked renewed interest in this ceramic ware. The discovery in 1986 of a miraculously intact brushwasher, or shallow bowl, at Baofeng Ceramic Factory, and its identification by Wang Qingzhen, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Museum, led a team of investigators to the village of Qingliangsi, in Baofengxian, Henan province. This area was known as Ruzhou, from which the ware derives its name, on and off from the Sui and Tang Dynasties into the Northern Song. The name was changed to Baofengxian in 1120, and the area was therefore ignored in the many attempts since the early decades of this century to locate the ru kilns. See Wang, et al., op. cit., p. 100
Other similar dishes, all about 17 cm. diameter, are illustrated in Wang, et. al., op. cit.. Four are in the Shanghai Museum, one of which has five spur marks (pl. 25-28), one in the Tianjin Museum (pl. 72) and one in Japan, formerly in the Kawabata collection (pl. 70). There is also one in The Saint Louis Art Museum, illustrated in the Handbook of the Collection, The Saint Louis Art Museum, 1975, p. 286 and in Mino, Yutaka and Tsiang, Katherine R., Ice and Green Clouds: Traditions of Chinese Celadon, Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1986, fig. 65a, p. 166.
Generally, it may be said that ruyao is a thin-bodied ware with a rather thick, semi-opaque glaze of pale-blue or sky-blue color and a scale-like craquelure. In places where the glaze is thinner, a light pinkish tinge is apparent. To enable the entire vessel to be covered with glaze, the ware was usually fired on small supporting spurs which left sesame seed-shaped marks on the base, usually three or five in number, and which show the pale ash-gray color of the body quite clearly.
Ru ware is known from historical sources to have been made in the late Northern Song period and to have been greatly admired. According to Jiu Hua in Tanzhai Biheng, ru was the finest celadon made in the empire until the capital established its own kiln in the Zhengde era (1111-1118) and named the ware produced guan, or official, ware. Zhou Hui of the Southern Song Dynasty, in his Qingbo Zazhi, wrote that agate was used in the manufacture of ru ware glaze. Refer to Wang, et al., op. cit., pp. 86 and 111.
The recent discovery of what is believed to be the site of the ru kilns has added to the previously meager store of knowledge and sparked renewed interest in this ceramic ware. The discovery in 1986 of a miraculously intact brushwasher, or shallow bowl, at Baofeng Ceramic Factory, and its identification by Wang Qingzhen, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Museum, led a team of investigators to the village of Qingliangsi, in Baofengxian, Henan province. This area was known as Ruzhou, from which the ware derives its name, on and off from the Sui and Tang Dynasties into the Northern Song. The name was changed to Baofengxian in 1120, and the area was therefore ignored in the many attempts since the early decades of this century to locate the ru kilns. See Wang, et al., op. cit., p. 100