Page 159 - Sotheby's Chinese Art and Porcelain Auction New York September 12, 2018

Extremely rare for its large size, this bowl is a masterpiece The Yaozhou kilns at Huangpu, southwest of Tongchuan
of the Yaozhou kilns. The slightly waisted silhouette, which city in Shaanxi province, which had gained renown through
endows it with a sense of elegance, is carved with a lively their pale green vessels with deep, large-scale carving in
ß oral design. The restrained strokes complement the subtle the Five Dynasties period (907-960), became China’s major
curves of the form while adding a sense of overall space suppliers of high-quality celadon wares in the Northern Song
and vitality. Bowls of this type were created to be used in dynasty (960-1127). While they turned to producing bowls
conjunction with a ewer, whereby warm water was poured and dishes with incised or molded designs on a vast scale
into the bowl to keep the contents of the ewer hot; see a and repeated many designs identically in large quantities,
closely related bowl with its ewer in the Palace Museum, they also made small numbers of more individually fashioned
Beijing, published in The Complete Collection of Treasures of items. Typically, ‘Yaozhou’ bowls are decorated on the
the Palace Museum. Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (I), Hong interior only, the design leaving free a plain broad band at the
Kong, 1996, pl. 102, together with a slightly smaller bowl, pl. rim. The delicate overall carved motifs give these bowls an
103. exquisite air.
Another bowl of this type, in the Tokyo National Museum, Matching bowls with ewers were popular among the gentry
Tokyo, was included in the exhibition The Masterpieces of of the Northern Song period and were also made in qingbai.
Yaozhou Ware, Osaka Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, Numerous paintings of the period depict qingbai ewers of
1997, cat. no. 96. See also a kiln waster consisting of a this type, being used to serve wine; see for example three
similar bowl with remains of a second, smaller bowl inside it, ewers and their matching bowls portrayed in the hanging
excavated from the kiln site and illustrated in The Yaozhou scroll Literary Gathering, attributed to the Huizong emperor
Kiln Site of the Song Period, Beijing, 1998, col. pl. 3, Þ g. 2, (r. 1101-1125), in the National Palace Museum, Taipei,
together with fragmentary bowls of this form with di" erent illustrated in the catalogue to the Museum’s exhibition
incised designs, pls 30 and 31. Precious as the Morning Star, Taipei, 2016, p. 41.

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