SONG/YUAN DYNASTY, 13TH-14TH CENTURY

It is possible that the fine, icy crackle in the glaze of this lovely dish was a deliberate attempt to imitate Guan wares, as a number of Song dynasty vessels from the Longquan kilns were made in the style of Guan wares. Some of these were made with a dark colored body, while others had a pale body similar to that seen of the present dish. This dish is not only distinguished by its beautiful glaze, but also by its relatively large size, with most dishes of this type, carved with a band of petals on the exterior and undecorated on the interior, being generally of smaller size, ranging typically from approximately 13.7 cm. to 16.3 cm. in diameter. A dish of the same size as the current example and carved with petals on the exterior, but with an even, uncrackled glaze, excavated at Jianyang City, Sichuan province, and now in the Sichuan Museum, is illustrated by Zhu Boqian, Celadons from Longquan Kilns, Taipei, 1998, p. 169, no. 140. Smaller Longquan dishes of this type include one discovered in 1963 amongst a cache of celadon, black-glazed and other ceramic wares in a Song dynasty well near Majiaqiao, Shaoxing in Zhejiang province. See 'Zhejiang Shaoxing Majiaqiao Song qu fa qu jianbao', Kaogu, 1964:11, p. 558, fig. 11:5. Other examples of this smaller type were more recently unearthed in Zhejiang, and are illustrated in Newly Discovered Southern Song Ceramics, A Thirteenth-Century "Time Capsule", Tokyo, 1998, nos. 46-8.