Page 58 - Beyond Compare Christie's Hong Kong RU WARE .pdf
P. 58
BEYOND COMPARE: A Thousand Years of the Literati Aesthetic
AD 1192 by Zhou Hui մሾ of the Southern Song, where it is noted that:
ϧᇉ܅ʕຫደdʫϞီຂ͋މذdઓԶౝৗ˙̈ርdڐˈᑙffig. 2
‘Ru ware was fired for the imperial court, and agate was used in its glaze. It was
only after pieces required by the court had been selected that others could be sold.
Recently these have been very difficult to find.’ Thus, these wares appear to have
been made specifically for the court, and only those not selected by the court could be
sold. The author of this text was writing in 1192, and already Ru wares were scarce.
It is also interesting that agate was reportedly being included in the glaze composition.
The inscription on the base of a dish in the Percival David Collection (PDF A58),
which is recorded in the Qianlong yu zhi shi ji (Collected Works of the Emperor
Qianlong), and entitled ‘On a dish of Ru ware’ repeats the latter assertion.
It may be translated as reading:
Ⴛ҂ڡᇉܔϧψ ‘The qing [green/blue] ware kiln of the Zhao [ruling house] of
the Song dynasty was founded at Ruzhou.
ෂၲီຂ͋މذ Tradition says that powdered carnelian [agate] was used in the
glaze,
Ͼʦ౻ᅃೌج Nowadays the method is not used at Jingdezhen.
͵Їᔝ䄕Ѝओ Also, it produced a natural blue and the precious colour floated
[in the glaze].
৻ඤʉͶࢀᕚ Inscribed by order of the Emperor in the summer of the yi hai
year of the Qianlong period [AD 1779].’
The colour of the imperial Ru glaze may range from pale ‘duck egg’ blue to the soft
sky blue of the current bowl, and has an almost ethereal quality. The majority of Ru
ware glazes have a delicate crackle – much less obvious than that seen on Southern
Song Guan wares or Ge wares – although a very small number bear a crackle-free
glaze. This would appear to be the first instance when a glaze was deliberately fired
with the intention that it would crackle, and it would have taken sophisticated control
of constituents and firing to ensure that the correct subtle crackling occurred. The
crackle on the current bowl is particularly delicate and only presents itself to those
fortunate enough to handle it.
Ru wares are characteristically fully glazed - including the foot - and were fired on
spurred setters, which left tiny elliptical, sesame seed-shaped, marks in the glaze. In
most cases, it was the base of the vessel which rested on the spurred setter. However,
in the case of some very special pieces it was the narrow lower edge of the foot which
stood on the tiny spurs. This is the case with the current bowl and it is just possible
to see the three, minute, marks on the edge of its foot, which were left by the spurs.
Interestingly the only other known bowl of this size and shape, which was excavated
from the site of the Qingliangsi kiln, was also fired in this precarious manner on
three tiny spurs (see Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, Northern Song Ru Ware –
Recent Archaeological Findings, Osaka, 2009, pp. 152-3 and 267, no. 67) (fig. 3). The
only other well-known pieces to be fired in this way are certain types of Ru bowl-
stand such as the example with five-petalled flange in the collection of Sir Percival
David (see Rosemary Scott, Imperial Taste – Chinese Ceramics from the Percival David
Foundation, op. cit., p. 37, no. 13). The Percival David bowl-stand and a similar Ru
ware bowl-stand which was excavated at the Qingliangsi kiln site (see Museum of
Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, Northern Song Ru Ware – Recent Archaeological Findings, op.
cit., pp. 156-7 and 267, no. 69)(fig. 4), both have the marks of five small spurs on
the bottom of the foot. This placement of the edge of a foot ring on tiny spurs was
56 ʔɭ { ҂˾ߕኪɓɷϋ
