Page 103 - Longsdorf Collection of Song Ceramics, 2013, J.J. Lally, New York

56. An U nusual Brown-Glazed P orcelain Tea Bowl
Southern Song Dynasty (A.D. 1127–1279)

heavily potted in white porcellaneous clay, with thick flaring sides rising from a small foot with
broad rim and with a shallow angle cut around the lower sides, the wide mouth with an indented
‘finger groove’ on the exterior below the tapered lip, covered with a mottled dark brown glaze
on the interior and exterior, the mouthrim wiped clean to allow the white body to show through
a clear glaze of pale bluish tint, the brown glaze bleeding onto the white rim on the exterior but
neatly controlled on the interior, the base and lower sides of the exterior unglazed, revealing the
sugary-white body.
Diameter 4 ⁄4 inches (12 cm)
3
The white porcelain body of this bowl is a very rare feature, but the shape of the bowl, the heavy potting, the shallow angle
cut low on the sides and the treatment of the foot and the rim all are typical of teabowls made of dark purplish-brown
stoneware at the Jian kilns in Fujian province during the Song dynasty. Field research has proven that elsewhere in Fujian
province, white porcelain wares, mostly with transparent-bluish ‘qingbai’ glaze were in production at Dehua and other
kilns during the Southern Song period. No other similar bowl with brown and ‘qingbai’ glaze combined on a porcelain
body appears to have been previously published, but Fujian province and the Dehua kilns seem the most likely origin of the
present example.
南宋 黑釉白口盞 徑 12 厘米