NORTHERN SONG-JIN DYNASTY (AD 960-1234)

The glaze on this vessel is a very successful example of the Song dynasty dark brown iron-rich glaze with russet splashes containing an even higher percentage of iron. Such glazes developed from earlier Tang glazes , but the Song potters utilized more refined raw materials and higher firing temperatures to achieve greater contrast and control. The russet splashes were applied in a number of ways, either regularly, as on the truncated meiping of slightly larger size (19.7 cm. high) with sloping shoulders and tapered foot, in the National Museum of Korea, illustrated in Song Ceramics, Osaka, 1999, p. 123, no. 85, or with almost organic randomness, as on a smaller (12.8 cm.) truncated meiping in the Miyoshi Kinenkan, Ashikaga, illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 12, Song, Tokyo, 1977, no. 246. The current vase strikes an aesthetically pleasing median between these two extremes.

A black-glazed truncated meiping (12.1 cm. high) of similar rounded form, but with a broader, canted mouth rim, and decorated with small, sparse dots of russet, is illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, op. cit., p. 246, fig. 106. See, also, the black-glazed truncated meiping of larger size (19 cm. high) and more narrow form and with sharp-edged mouth rim, and decorated with small, irregular splashes of russet, in the Meiyintang Collection, illustrated by R. Krahl in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Vol. Three (II), London, 2006, p. 505, no. 1510.