NORTHERN SONG-JIN DYNASTY, 12TH CENTURY

This well-potted deep bowl on a small-diameter straight foot is one of the most elegant forms produced at the Cizhou kilns, and appears to have been particularly popular during the 12th century. A number of these deep bowls have been excavated from the Guantai kilns in Cixian, Hebei province. According to archaeologists, deep bowls of the present shape belong to the late Phase II of the Guantai kiln, dating from Jianzhongjingguo reign of Song Huizong to the Huangtong reign of Jin Xizong (1101-1149). The decoration on such pieces can be divided into three styles. Some of these were left plain white, illustrated in Archaeology Department of Peking University, Guantai Cizhou yaozhi, Beijing, 1997, colour pl. VI, no. 2. Some were decorated with linear sgraffiato designs incised through the slip to reveal the body beneath, ibid., colour pl. VI no. 1, monochrome pl. XIII, no. 4. The majority of the deep bowls, both excavated and preserved in collections, are decorated with bold designs painted in black or dark brown slip, cf. ibid., colour pl. VI, no. 3, monochrome pl. XIII, no. 3, pl. XIV, no. 1. It has been suggested by some scholars that the painted technique was developed in Cizhou kilns to imitate the complicated black-sgraffiato decoration. This effect is most successfully achieved by a type like the current bowl, which have bold black painted decorative motifs, on which details have been incised through the black slip to reveal the white slip beneath. Compare also two superb examples in the Linyushanren collection representing this technique, illustrated in Christie's, The Classical Age of Chinese Ceramics: An Exhibition of Song Treasures from the Linyushanren Collection, Hong Kong, 2012, pp. 138-141, nos. 57-58.