Page 209 - Christie's Fine Chinese Paintings March 19 2019 Auction

An ExcEptionAl

‘numbErEd’ Jun Jardinière

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robably for a small sculptured tree, this fower pot is exquisitely long a period, it would have appeared almost opaque due to the growth of
shaped and glazed. Such Jun pieces have a numeral inscribed in too many wollastonite crystals. Some of these rounded white crystals were,
P Chinese script on the base—possibly impressed but possibly incised however, desirable since the pale clouds that they formed added to the
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or carved —likely to indicate the vessel’s size and to facilitate pairing it with beautiful texture of the glaze, as did the gas bubbles which failed to escape
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a drainage basin of appropriate size. The inscribed numbers range from one from the glaze during fring. All these elements afected the passage of light
to ten, with one designating the largest and ten the smallest; this fower pot through the glaze and contributed to its colour and texture.” 7
claims the numeral three. Because of the inscribed numerals, such vessels
are termed Numbered Jun ware in English, though they are categorized as Among the most famous of Chinese ceramics, Jun wares fall into two
Guan Jun, or “oficial Jun ware”, in Chinese. typological groups. The frst, generally regarded as earlier and often termed
classic Jun, includes such food- and wine-serving vessels as dishes, bowls,
This vessel functioned as a jardinière, or fower pot, for a growing plant, cups, small jars, and the occasional bottle or vase. The second category,
not as a cachepot, or ornamental holder for containing and disguising a termed Numbered Jun ware, or Guan Jun, includes vessels that not only
fower pot. This particular interpretation of the jardinière shape is termed a are generally much larger than classic Jun wares but are almost exclusively
hexagonal fower pot with foliated lip, walls, and foot in English, but is more fower pots and associated drip-basins. So revered was Jun ware that
poetically characterized in Chinese as a kuihuashi huapen, which is often connoisseurs of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) ranked it among the “Five
translated as hibiscus-shaped fower pot. (Other interpretations of the shape Great Wares of the Song Dynasty”, alongside Ding, Ru, Guan, and Ge wares.
include ones with barbed, or bracketed, rim, walls, and foot, ones of circular Even so, those Jun wares described in early Ming records seem to include
zun shape, ones of rectangular form, and ones of quatrefoil form, often only classic Jun pieces, as no mentions in those records suggest the large
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termed “mallow-shaped” in Chinese.) Pierced during manufacture, fve vessels that were made as fower pots; by contrast, depictions of fower pots
meticulously spaced holes in the pot’s foor allowed any excess water to drain and basins, seemingly of Numbered Jun ware, occasionally appear in Ming
into the basin that once accompanied this pot. While an azure glaze—with and Qing paintings. 8
the so-called earthworm-track markings so prized by traditional Chinese
connoisseurs—covers the vessel’s interior and a variegated azure and purple The general dating of classic Jun ware is comparatively well understood,
glaze its exterior, a thin dressing of mottled brownish olive glaze coats the even if an exact chronology has yet to be frmly established, but the category
underside. In fact, the glaze on the base is believed to be the same basic of Numbered Jun ware has sparked much controversy in recent decades.
azure blue glaze that covers the interior, but as it was applied very thinly it Classic Jun wares of the Northern Song (960–1127) and Jin (1115–1234)
fred olive brown rather than blue. Like other Numbered Jun examples, this periods sport a robin’s-egg blue glaze sometimes enlivened with sufusions
planter was fred right side up, standing in its saggar not on spurs but on its of lavender or purple from copper flings sprinkled or brushed on the surface
own footring, the bottom of which was left unglazed. of the glaze before fring. Following a tradition set during the Qing dynasty
(1644–1911) some specialists assert that numbered pieces were produced
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Classic Jun glazes are thick, opalescent, and translucent. Despite their at the same time as classic Jun wares, but many other scholars now favor
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color, often termed “robin’s-egg blue”, they fall within the celadon family of a fourteenth- or ffteenth-century date for the numbered examples —that
glazes. In fact, apart from their prized pale blue-glazed wares, the Jun kilns is, a date in the Yuan (1279–1368) or early Ming period. Standing apart from
also produced traditional celadon wares —stonewares with transparent, the subtly colored monochrome glazes of most Northern Song and Jin
bluish green glazes. Like all celadon glazes, the Jun glaze relies upon an ceramics, the exuberant purple glazes of Numbered Jun wares fnd aesthetic
oxide of iron as its basic coloring agent; fred in a reducing atmosphere, the kinship in the copper-red glazes of the early Ming. Their use as pots for plant
glaze matures bluish green. The Jun glaze’s opalescence and distinctive cultivation diferentiates numbered pieces from classic Jun wares, just as
robin’s-egg hue resulted from the spontaneous separation of the glaze into their large size not only distinguishes them from classic wares but links them
silica-rich and lime-rich glasses during the last stage of fring—in essence, to fourteenth- and ffteenth-century ceramics from other kilns. Moreover,
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the formation of tiny globules of lime-rich glass within the silica-rich glaze the formalized foral shapes—in particular, the barbed and foliated rims with
matrix—a phenomenon known as phase separation; during that stage, kiln their thickened edges—fnd parallels in those of fourteenth- and ffteenth-
temperature was maintained at, or just a little below, 1200° Celsius, after century vessels in lacquer and metalwork; more to the point, the formalized
which the kiln was slowly cooled, circumstances that, in the particular Jun shapes are akin to those of ceramics produced at other kilns, particularly
glaze mixture, cause phase separation. The glaze’s translucency, which to blue-and-white porcelains produced at Jingdezhen in the fourteenth and
sometimes borders on opacity, derives not only from phase separation but early ffteenth centuries.
from the presence of numerous particles and bubbles (which are clearly
visible with a magnifying glass). Jun wares were fred in mantou-type Perhaps the most compelling argument for a ffteenth-century date, however,
kilns — circular, domed kilns so-named because of the shape’s superfcial is the technique of manufacture of this jardinière and other Numbered
resemblance to a Chinese dumpling, or mantou, (Mantou kilns stand in Jun vessels; rather than being turned on a potter’s wheel or shaped over a
contrast to the long, hillside, dragon kilns that were popular farther south.) so-called hump mold, such vessels were formed with double-faced, press
Due to their relatively small size and thick walls, mantou kilns permit more molds. Although Chinese potters had employed single-faced, or hump
precise control of fring temperatures than did most other traditional Chinese molds since antiquity, the use of press molds is not otherwise documented
kiln types. before the fourteenth century, when it came to be used at Jingdezhen, in
Jiangxi province. Such double-faced molds allow the foliations (or barbs) and
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Based on research by W. David Kingery and Pamela Vandiver, Rosemary indentations of the rim to continue down the walls of the pot with the perfect
Scott has succinctly summarized phase separation: “… the Jun glaze had to placement and symmetry that hand crafting would seldom permit. Beginning
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be kept at a high temperature for a signifcant period and had to be cooled in the late fourteenth and continuing into the ffteenth century, potters
slowly. If the temperature was raised too much, the emulsion would have delighted in continuing those foliations / barbs and indentations into the
decreased and the glaze would have been transparent, and if the glaze was footring, so that the footring perfectly echoes the rim of a barbed or foliated
cooled too quickly then the emulsion would not have time to form and a fower pot. This feature fnds parallels in the elaborately molded forms of
transparent glaze would also have resulted. If the glaze was cooled for too blue-and-white porcelain stemcups and brush washers produced during the

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