Page 68 - Beyond Compare Christie's Hong Kong RU WARE .pdf

BEYOND COMPARE: A Thousand Years of the Literati Aesthetic

RARE PERFECT REFINEMENT:
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THE BARON MASUDA DONNO
LONGQUAN KINUTA VASE

Rosemary Scott
Senior International Academic Consultant Asian Art, Asian Art

his vase is exceptionally rare and encapsulates the serene refinement of the
TSong period. The finest Longquan celadon wares, as exemplified by the
current vase, have been revered both in China and Japan for more than eight hundred
years and, especially in Japan, have been handed down within families and important
temples. The glaze on the current vase represents the best of everything that was
admired in a Longquan celadon glaze - it is thick, translucent and has a rich texture
reminiscent of jade. The colour of this glaze also has the clear, soft bluish-green
colour, which was so highly prized by connoisseurs and yet so difficult for potters to
achieve. It required the ideal combination of raw materials, preparation, application
and firing in order to produce this perfect colour and texture, and so is extremely
rare. This particularly fine glaze type is often known by the Japanese name kinuta seiji
ोڡှ, which refers to fine celadon-green mallet-shaped vases, such as the current
example, which were imported into Japan in the Southern Song (AD 1127-1279) and
Yuan (AD 1279-1368) dynasties, and became associated by connoisseurs with this,
most-desired of glaze colours. It has even been suggested that it was the current vase
that inspired the use of the term kinuta seiji for these highly prized pieces.

Although the name of this vase shape is based on its resemblance to a paper mallet,
in fact it is likely that this form, with its almost cylindrical body, long columnar neck
and flattened mouth, was introduced into China from the Islamic West, possibly fig. 1 An Iranian glass bottle, 9th-10th century,
The Al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait National Museum
Iran, as a glass vase or bottle. Fragments of glass vessels of this shape were found in ॱˏ ̏ ډˠ☸᧖ᑔἻῪ⁄䢲"M 4BCBI Ὂⳉ䢲
1997 among the excavated material from the cargo of the 10th century Intan wreck ⏴஖ṁ४೰ښḵ㩉
(see M. Flecker, The Archaeological Excavation of the 10th Century Intan Shipwreck,
Oxford, 2002). This ship was excavated in the Java Sea, off the Indonesian coast,
and contained a large number of 10th century Chinese ceramics, as well as a small
amount of Islamic glass and other materials. A whole blown glass bottle of this form,
with an almost cylindrical neck, from the Iranian region, dating to the 9th-10th
century is in the Al-Sabah Collection (fig. 1)(illustrated by S. Carboni, in Glass from
Islamic Lands – The Al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait National Museum, London, 2001, no.
25a), while two slightly later examples dating to the 10th-11th century, also from the
Iranian region, but with slightly tapering necks, are in the same collection (illustrated
ibid., nos. 35 and 55). An Islamic glass bottle of this form was also found in 1986
in a Liao tomb dated to AD 1018 (see Liao chen guo gong zhu mu፱௓਷ʮ˴ྥ‘
Beijing, 1993, fig. 14-2). The body of this glass bottle tapered towards the foot,
while its neck tapered towards the mouth. In view of the shape of the necks and the
fact that Islamic glass is known to have entered China in the Tang and Five Dynasties
period, it is probably the earlier 9th-10th century Islamic glass vessels which inspired
the Chinese ceramic form.

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