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This bowl is exceptionally rare amongst Ding wares in being covered with a each panel. A shard of another brown-glazed Ding bowl was found at
brown glaze, instead of the more usual ivory glaze. It is also rare amongst the Ding ware kiln site at Yanchuancun, Chuyangxian in Hebei province
brown-glazed Ding wares in having moulded decoration on the interior. in 1980 (illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci – Dingyao, op. cit., no. 143). It is
Although the Ding kilns are known for high-fred ceramics with clear probable that the current bowl was also made at this site. The moulded
ivory glazes and a small number of black-glazed bowls, a small number foral decoration on the fragment is very similar to that seen on ivory-glazed
of brown-glazed Ding ware vessels are also known. These brown glazes, Ding ware vessels. A brown-glazed Ding bowl excavated from the ancient
which owe their colour to iron oxide, occur in a range of shades from dark Liao dynasty site of Qingzhou in the Balin (or Bairin) Right Banner in Inner
soy brown to a russet brown, and with varying degrees of opacity. Brown- Mongolia Autonomous Region, and now in the Balin Right Banner Cultural
glazed wares were being made at least as early as the mid-Northern Song Bureau, is illustrated in Zhongguo Wenwu Qinghua Da Cidian, Shanghai,
period, as evidenced by the brown-glazed Ding ware vase in the collection 1995, no. 349. Like the current bowl, the Balin Right Banner bowl is
of the Jiangsu Provincial Museum, which has been linked to two similar decorated with a design of fsh in a lotus pond.
vases from a tomb dated the 4th year of Kangning – equivalent to AD
1071 (illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci – Dingyao, Tokyo, 1981, no. 58), and It is interesting to compare the moulded decoration on the current brown-
another excavated in 2002 from a Northern Song tomb at Shiafen, Jintan glazed bowl with that on extant ivory-glazed vessels. The fsh and the
City (illustrated in Complete Collection of Ceramic Art Unearthed in China water are rendered in a distinctive manner. In the case of the water this
– 7 – Jiangsu, Shanghai, Beijing, 2008, p. 129). Purple [brown] Ding wares is depicted using fne raised parallel lines, which both undulate and form
are mentioned by Cao Zhao in the Gegu yaolun of AD 1388, where it is eddies. A bowl in the Liaoning Provincial Museum has lotus and birds
noted that the brown and black Ding wares were more expensive than the around the interior sides, but in the centre has fsh in waves (illustrated in
white-glazed wares (see Sir Percival David, Chinese Connoisseurship – The Zhongguo Taoci – Dingyao, op. cit., no. 91). Both the fsh and the waves
Ko Ku Yao Lun, The Essential Criteria of Antiquities, London, 1971, p. 141). are depicted in similar styles to those seen around the sides of the current
bowl. A similarity in the depiction of both water and fsh can also be seen
The majority of extant brown-glazed Ding wares do not have either incised on a bowl in the Palace Museum (illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci – Dingyao,
or moulded decoration, although a few russet-coloured bowls retain the op. cit., no. 88).
remains of gold decoration applied to the glaze surface – as in the case
of two brown-glazed bowls from the collection of the Tokyo National Rosemary Scott
Museum illustrated in Song Ceramics, Osaka, 1999, pp. 72-3, nos. 35 and International Academic Director, Asian Art
36. The current bowl belongs to an extremely small group of brown-glazed
Ding ware bowls which have moulded decoration under the glaze, which
are ascribed either a Song or Jin dynasty date. A bowl with dark brown
glaze was excavated in 1975 in Jilin province (illustrated in Zhongguo
Taoci – Dingyao, op. cit., no. 113). This bowl is slightly lobed and its
interior decoration is arranged in panels with a different fower spray in
(base)
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