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Lot Essay
Jian tea bowls were held in high esteem by the Song scholar-official class and even the emperors. Cai Xiang (1012-1067), the famous calligrapher and high-ranking official at the Northern Song court, designated the ‘hare’s fur’ tea bowls from Jian’an the most appropriate utensil for serving tea in his two-chapter treatise entitled Cha lu (A Record of Tea). He believed the white tea looked best in black-glazed bowls and the slightly thicker wall of Jian wares help to retain the heat. By the early twelfth century, the connoisseurship of Jian tea bowls was further developed by the Emperor Huizong (1082-1135). In his twenty-chapter treatise, Daguan chalun (A Discourse on Tea in the Daguan Era) of 1107, the Huizong Emperor stated that “the desirable color of a tea bowl is bluish black and the best examples display clearly streaked hairs.” The current bowl is representative of the best tea bowls of the Song dynasty, judging by the Huizong Emperor’s criteria.
Jian tea bowls come in only two main forms. Most frequently seen are the Jian bowls potted with narrow waisted bands below the rims on the exterior, such as the Jian ‘hare’s fur’ bowl from the Linyushanren Collection sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 2 December 2015, lot 2820. Much rarer are Jian bowls with widely flaring sides as seen on the current example. Jian bowls of this type are also generally bigger in size than the first type. A Jian ‘hare’s fur’ bowl of this form, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 10, Tokyo, 1980, no. 36. A famous Jian ‘oil spot’ bowl of this form is preserved in the Seikado Bunko Art Museum, Tokyo, and illustrated in Tokugawa Bijutsukan and Nezu Bijutsukan, Tenmoku, Tokyo, 1979, pl. 10. Another Jian ‘oil spot’ bowl of similar form, in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., is illustrated by Koyama Fujio, Toji taikei 38: tenmoku, Tokyo, 1974, figs. 38 and 39. See, also, the similar Jian ‘hare’s fur’ bowl sold at Christie’s New York, 13-15 September 2017, lot 1165.
Jian tea bowls come in only two main forms. Most frequently seen are the Jian bowls potted with narrow waisted bands below the rims on the exterior, such as the Jian ‘hare’s fur’ bowl from the Linyushanren Collection sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 2 December 2015, lot 2820. Much rarer are Jian bowls with widely flaring sides as seen on the current example. Jian bowls of this type are also generally bigger in size than the first type. A Jian ‘hare’s fur’ bowl of this form, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 10, Tokyo, 1980, no. 36. A famous Jian ‘oil spot’ bowl of this form is preserved in the Seikado Bunko Art Museum, Tokyo, and illustrated in Tokugawa Bijutsukan and Nezu Bijutsukan, Tenmoku, Tokyo, 1979, pl. 10. Another Jian ‘oil spot’ bowl of similar form, in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., is illustrated by Koyama Fujio, Toji taikei 38: tenmoku, Tokyo, 1974, figs. 38 and 39. See, also, the similar Jian ‘hare’s fur’ bowl sold at Christie’s New York, 13-15 September 2017, lot 1165.