SONG DYNASTY, 11TH-EARLY 12TH CENTURY

The Longquan kilns in Zhejiang province produced a wide variety of celadon-glazed stonewares, including an interesting group of thinly potted vessels covered with a greyish-blue glaze suffused with light-colored crackle; such wares were supposedly made in imitation of Guan wares, produced at the nearby kilns in Hangzhou, also in Zhejiang province. An example of the Guan ware prototype for the present bowl was included in the exhibition, Song Ceramics, Tobu Museum of Art, Tokyo, 1999, no. 65.

For other examples of Longquan ware imitating Guan ware, see the small cup of slightly deeper form and the small ring-handled bowl, both exhibiting a crackled glaze similar to that on the present piece, illustrated in Celadons from Longquan Kilns, Taipei, 1998, p. 102, no. 65.