A Rare Yaozhou Black and Russet-Glazed Bowl
A Rare Yaozhou Black and Russet-Glazed Bowl

NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY, 11TH CENTURY

Details
A Rare Yaozhou Black and Russet-Glazed Bowl
Northern Song dynasty, 11th century
The deep sides rising from the tall, narrow foot ring to an everted rim subtly notched to form six petals, the interior painted in russet with eleven abstract branches extending from the center to the rim atop a blackish-brown glaze, the rim also of russet color and the exterior with mottled glaze of russet and blackish color
4 3/4in. (12.1cm.) diam., box
Falk Collection no. 117.
Provenance
C.T. Loo, New York, June 1950.
Exhibited
Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers: Chinese Brown-and Black-Glazed Ceramics, 400-1400, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums; New York, China Institute Gallery; Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, 1995-1997, no. 21.

Lot Essay

Although best known for their superb celadon-glazed stonewares, the Yaozhou kilns also produced outstanding black and brown-glazed wares such as this very rare and charming bowl spiritedly decorated with splashes of rust-brown. Excavations in 1973 at the Huangpu kiln complex in Tongquan, Yaozhou county, revealed shards with rust-brown decoration identical to that on the present lot, confirming its exact place of manufacture; see Zhou Zhenxi and Lu Jianguo,'Yaozhouyao yizhi diaocha fajue xin shouhuo,' Kaogu yu wenwu 3 (1980); p.56, fig. 2, no. 4.

A dark brown-glazed bowl of the exact same shape as the present lot, but of slightly smaller size and lacking the rust-brown splashes, is illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci Quanji, 10, Yaozho Yao, Shanghai, 1985, no. 37.

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