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P. 68
THE WORLDWIDE PATRIMONY OF
HEIRLOOM RU OFFICIAL WARES
Regina Krahl
F or no other Song dynasty (960-1279) ceramic ware a complete wares included a few pieces which today would no longer qualify
list of extant examples could be compiled, like this is possible as such, his number was not far off the present mark of securely
for Ru official wares. This is due not only to the fact that Ru verified pieces abroad, which has increased only slightly to thirty-
represents by far the rarest category of Chinese ceramics; there six recorded examples. In 1987, Wang Qingzheng published a list of
are also two other important contributing factors: First, Ru wares sixty-five heirloom pieces of Ru official ware worldwide, enlarging it
always represented revered treasures, treated with diligent care to sixty-nine in a revised edition in 1991, but including some pieces
and conspicuously handed down. Although the list of extant pieces about which he himself expressed doubts (Wang et al., 1987, pp.
got longer over the years, since pieces are still occasionally coming 38-40; 1991, pp. 115-117).
to light that have languished undiscovered in museum storerooms
– not surprising especially where no specialist curator is at hand, In the catalogue of an exhibition of Ru ware in the Museum of
since Ru ware is at first glance unobtrusive – it is becoming more Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, in 2009, Degawa Tetsuro compiled a list
and more unlikely that examples hidden, unrecognized, in private of seventy reliable pieces (Osaka, 2009, pp. 279-87). In our last
collections will be found. Second, Ru wares have never been so sale catalogue that presented a piece of Ru ware in Hong Kong in
closely copied that later copies, or contemporary pieces from lesser 2012, we were able to add nine further items to that list, arriving at
kilns, could today easily be mixed up with the real wares, as would a total of seventy-nine Ru pieces that can be considered ‘heirloom’,
be the case, for example, when trying to establish a list of extant i.e. pieces that were never buried and excavated, but preserved and
Song guan wares from Hangzhou. handed down above ground (Sotheby’s, 2012, pp. 40-43).
The only other Chinese ceramic ware, where the establishment of a These publications appear to have formed the basis for a yet
catalogue raisonné has ever been attempted, by Julian Thompson, more ambitious list included in a recent publication of the Palace
are the imperial porcelains of Chenghua mark and period (1465- Museum, Beijing (Beijing, 2015, pp. 260-305), where the museum
1487); but whereas the number of extant Ru pieces amounts to made public for the first time several so far unpublished items from
less than one hundred, Chenghua wares probably run to at least six its collection, many of which had been damaged in the well-known
times that number. palace fire in 1923 and thus had previously probably not be deemed
worthy of publishing. This listing assembles a total of ninety pieces
The exact figure of preserved Ru guan ware pieces has intrigued worldwide. Four pieces ought, however, be deducted from the
scholars for decades and recorded numbers have been rising. When list: a parrot-shaped fragment purchased by the Palace Museum,
in 1958 G. St. G. M. Gompertz compiled a list of extant Ru wares, he Beijing, in 2001 (Beijing, 2015, fig. 41); a brush washer donated
assembled thirty-one pieces outside of China, in addition to ten sent to the Shanghai Museum, that was collected from and led to the
by the Chinese Government to the Royal Academy of Art exhibition discovery of the Ru kiln site (Beijing, 2015, fig. 42); a shallow bowl
in London 1935-1936 (Gompertz, 1958, p. 34). No other pieces in the Guangdong Province Museum, which was reconstituted from
from any Chinese collection were known at that time. Since then, a fragment (Beijing, 2015, fig. 54); and a bowl stand published and
many more specimens have been published, particularly pieces sold as Korean rather than as a piece of Ru ware (Guardian Hong
held in China, but also a few preserved in collections abroad, which Kong, 5.4. 2013, lot 414; Beijing, 2015, fig. 90).
had not been made public before. Although Gompertz’s list of Ru
66 | SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比
