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Lot Essay
While the discussions continue between scholars regarding which wares of this type should be called Guan wares and which Ge wares, these beautiful crackle-glazed stonewares from south China retain their mystery and their beauty. The Five Great Song Wares are traditionally Guan, Ge, Ding, Jun and Ru. Each of these wares has its own characteristics, and in the case of Guan and Ge wares the simple forms combined with a rich blue-grey crackled glaze produces ceramics of great sophistication and elegance, without revealing the extreme difficulty of their production. The variations in color and translucency of these glazes, as well as the density of their crackle are greatly dependent on the application of the glaze and the control of the atmosphere in the kilns in which they were fired.
The subtle form of the Falk bowl shows the restrained use of a flower form often seen in the Southern Song period. The flower in question is the most popular of all those adopted at that time - the mallow. However, rather than carrying the petal form down the sides of the bowl, the potter has merely everted the rim slightly and then gently indented it to indicate the six mallow petals. A bowl of similar size and shape is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (I), Hong Kong, 1996, p. 70, no. 63. As can be seen from the illustration, the glaze on this piece has also crawled in the same manner as that on the Falk bowl. Such glaze crawl is a common occurrence on these wares. A smaller version of this form is illustrated in the same volume, p. 77, no. 70. The publication states that both these bowls are from the Qing Court collection. A bowl of similar size and form to the Falk bowl is also in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, illustrated in their Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Sung Kuan Ware, Taipei, 1989, p. 103, no. 67.
The subtle form of the Falk bowl shows the restrained use of a flower form often seen in the Southern Song period. The flower in question is the most popular of all those adopted at that time - the mallow. However, rather than carrying the petal form down the sides of the bowl, the potter has merely everted the rim slightly and then gently indented it to indicate the six mallow petals. A bowl of similar size and shape is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (I), Hong Kong, 1996, p. 70, no. 63. As can be seen from the illustration, the glaze on this piece has also crawled in the same manner as that on the Falk bowl. Such glaze crawl is a common occurrence on these wares. A smaller version of this form is illustrated in the same volume, p. 77, no. 70. The publication states that both these bowls are from the Qing Court collection. A bowl of similar size and form to the Falk bowl is also in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, illustrated in their Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Sung Kuan Ware, Taipei, 1989, p. 103, no. 67.