Page 70 - Beyond Compare Christie's Hong Kong RU WARE .pdf
P. 70
BEYOND COMPARE: A Thousand Years of the Literati Aesthetic
The particular version of the mallet-shaped vase represented by the current vase,
which does not have handles, is very rare amongst surviving Southern Song and Yuan
dynasty Longquan celadons. In the Northern Song dynasty, the mallet form with wide
flattened mouth and without handles was made in two of the ceramic wares associated
with the imperial court. A small number of Ding wares were made in this form, and
an example with reduced mouth is in the collection of Sir Percival David (illustrated
by S. Pierson in Song Ceramics - Objects of Admiration, Percival David Foundation,
London, 2003, p. 20-1, no. 1). Perhaps even more significantly, Ru wares of the
type made specifically for the Northern Song court, have been found in this form.
A mallet-shaped Ru ware vase with wide flattened mouth was excavated in 1987 at
the kiln site of Qingliangsi ૭υ, Baofengxian, Henan province (illustrated in Grand
View: Special Exhibition of Ju Ware from the Northern Sung Dynasty, National Palace
Museum, Taipei, 2006, pp. 114-5, no. 23), while the National Palace Museum, has
in its own collection two similar Ru ware vases with damaged mouths (illustrated ibid.,
pp. 116-19, nos. 24 & 25) (fig. 2). In 2004 this vase form was also found among the
pale celadon vessels, closely related to imperial Ru ware, excavated from a kiln site
at Zhanggongxiang ੵʮ܍, Ruzhou, Henan, just south-east of Ruzhou City (fig. 3)
(illustrated in Zhongguo chongyao kaogu faxianʕࠠࠅϽ̚೯ତ, Beijing, 2004, p.
156, upper plate).
fig. 2 A Ru mallet vase, Northern Song dynasty.
Links between the finest Longquan celadon vases, such as the current vessel, and Collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei
the Northern Song imperial Ru wares are also suggested by the fineness and more ॱ̣ ٫ᥦ⒋♑⁄ ४⒤ᐅ೫ښḵ㡗ⳉި
bluish tone of the glaze on the Southern Song wares – a feature that is also seen on
Southern Song imperial Guan ware - and it is probably also significant that, as noted
above, Northern Song ceramic vessels of this mallet form made for the court have no
handles, and when this form was produced for the Southern Song imperial court in
Guan ware at the Laohudong kilns, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, these too were
made without handles (fig. 4) (see Du Zhengxian Ӂ͍ሬ, Hangzhou Laohudong yao
zhi ciqi jingxuanψϼډݸᇉѧኜၚ፯, Beijing, 2002, no. 29). The majority of
Longquan mallet-form vases had a pair of handles, one on either side of the columnar
neck. Most frequently these handles were in the shape of birds, which are usually
identified as phoenixes. An example of this type is preserved in the collection of the
Palace Museum, Beijing (fig. 5)(illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of
the Palace Museum - 33 - Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (II), Hong Kong, 1996, p. 110,
no. 98), while another is in the collection of the Museum of Oriental Ceramics,
Osaka (illustrated in Masterpieces of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 1994, p. 48, no. 23). Less
frequently, mallet-shaped Longquan vases were given handles in the form of yulong
(Ꮂ dragon-fish) with fish-like bodies and dragon-like heads. A large mallet-form
Longquan celadon vase with yulong handles was sold by Christie’s New York, 19
March 2008, lot 561 (fig. 6). A Longquan mallet vase with dragon-fish handle was
also excavated in 1983 from a Southern Song tomb in Songyangxian (illustrated by
Zhu Boqian (ed.), Celadons from Longquan Kilns, Taipei, 1998, p. 149, no. 116) and
another was excavated from the wreck of a vessel which sank off the Sinan coast
of Korea in about 1323 on its way to Japan (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue
Xin’an haidi wenwu (Cultural Relics from the Sinan Seabed), National Museum of
Korea, Seoul, 1977, no. 3). Rarest of all are the Longquan mallet vases, such as the
current vessel, which were made without handles, and only a small number of further
examples are known. An example from the Qing Court collection is in the Palace
68 ʔɭ { ҂˾ߕኪɓɷϋ
