Page 81 - Longsdorf Collection of Song Ceramics, 2013, J.J. Lally, New York

42. A Jianyao ‘S tarburst’ Black- And Brown-Glazed Tea Bowl
Song Dynasty (A.D. 960–1279)

with steep flaring sides rising to a wide mouth with tapered rim and with a gently inset ‘finger
groove’ below the lip on the exterior, the sturdy walls decorated inside and out with dramatic
brushed-on streaks of russet-brown over a lustrous black glaze, creating the appearance of a
starburst rising from the circular floor of the bowl, the black glaze on the exterior also with bold
rust-colored streaks and ending in a thick roll around the knife-pared angle low on the sides, the
lower sides and foot unglazed showing the coarse dark reddish-purplish-brown body, matching
the color around the rim where the glaze has drained away.
Diameter 4 ⁄8 inches (12.3 cm)
7
A Jianyao tea bowl decorated with this rare dramatic glaze technique, excavated in 1990 at the Jian kiln site and now in
the collection of the Fujian Provincial Museum, is illustrated in Zhongguo taoci quanji (8) Song, xia (The Complete Works of
Chinese Ceramics, Vol. 8, Song, II), Shanghai, 1999, p. 221, no. 204, with a detailed caption on p. 304. The same tea bowl
was exhibited at the MOA Museum of Art and illustrated in the catalogue of the special exhibition of temmoku tea bowls
entitled Karamono temmoku: Fukken-shō ken’yō shutsudo temmoku to Nihon densei no temmoku, tokubetsuten, (Temmoku
Tea Wares: Temmoku Excavated from the Jian Kilns in Fujian Province and Temmoku in Japanese Private Collections, A
Special Exhibition), Atami, 1994, p. 66, no. 49 (two views) and with an interior view on p. 41.
宋 建窯黑釉鐵銹斑盞 徑 12.3 厘米