NORTHERN SONG-JIN DYNASTY (AD 960-1234)

A meiping in the Art Institute of Chicago, which is similarly glazed and also has a flat, everted mouth rim, is illustrated by R. Mowry in Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, Harvard University Art Museums, 1996, no. 35. In his discussion of the russet markings the author notes that the "term, zhegu ban (partridge-feather mottles) appears in texts of the mid-tenth century to describe ceramics with mottled decoration." He further notes that the larger "partridge-feather mottles," of the type seen on both meiping, "began to appear in dark-glazed Cizhou-type wares in the eleventh century."