Page 52 - Song Ceramics Lunyushanren Collection March 2018 NYC

their fndings under the title The Cizhou Kiln site at Guantai 觀台磁州窯 separated by spurred setters. This type of fring at Cizhou kilns has been
址, Beijing, 1997. This publication provided not only a chronological confrmed by fnds at the Guantai kiln. Black and white fgure CXI-1 in
study of the ceramics themselves, but also evidence of manufacturing The Cizhou Kiln site at Guantai, op. cit., clearly shows a saggar from sector
techniques, including workshops and kiln furniture. It also made it clear T5 (10) in which bowls have been stacked, and spur marks can be seen on
that the majority of decorative techniques applied to Cizhou ceramics the interior base of the lower bowl. Three-spurred setters have also been
were in use at the Guantai kiln site, which also included monochrome found at the Guantai site in a number of sectors (see The Cizhou Kiln site
black and brown wares, as well as white wares similar to those found at Guantai, black and white fgure CXVIII- 1-4).
at Juluxian. As is often the case with major kiln sites in north China, The most challenging of the sgraffato techniques employed by the
the Guantai site was located near to coal mines, and the archaeological
ceramic decorators at the Cizhou kilns was that in which the body of
investigations confrmed that coal was indeed used to fre the Guantai
the vessel was covered in white slip, and then covered in black or dark
kilns.
brown slip. The outline of the decoration was incised through the black
One of the most characteristic decorative techniques seen on Cizhou slip, and then the black slip was cut away from the ground, leaving the
wares, and used extensively at the Guantai kilns was sgraffato, in which white slip beneath intact. The result was a bold black/dark brown design
areas of slip were removed in order to create a design of contrasting against a white ground. Finally, the vessel was usually covered with a
colour to the ground on which it appeared. This technique could either thin, colourless glaze, although a smaller number of vessels were given
reveal the colour of the clay body beneath the slip or could reveal a slip a green, low-fring glaze – as in the case of a trumpet-mouthed vase in
of a different colour beneath the slip layer that was being partly removed. the Linyushanren Collection (lot 517) which was previously registered
Both techniques required considerable skill on the part of the ceramic in Japan as An Important Art Object. This vase shares a similar shape
decorator, and both could produce decoration that was both bold and with the white Cizhou vase from the Linyushanren Collection (lot 512)
aesthetically pleasing. discussed above, but it is worth noting that while the colourless glaze on
the white vase could be fred to stoneware temperature, the lead-fuxed
One of the examples of this sgraffato technique in which the contrast green glaze could not. If the potter wanted to produce a stoneware vessel,
achieved is between the white of the slip and the greyish-buff of the body
therefore, the vase had to be fred to stoneware temperature without the
material is a deep bowl in the Linyushanren collection (lot 511). This is
green glaze and then re-fred to a lower temperature after the glaze was
a technique that was used at the Guantai kiln, as can be seen from sherds
applied. Some Cizhou green glazed vases with black on white decoration
excavated from sector T11 (7) at the site and illustrated in black and white
have a colourless glaze under the green glaze to prevent running of
fgure XV, 2-5, and fgure XXI-2 of The Cizhou Kiln site at Guantai 觀
the black slip during fring (see Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven
台磁州窯址, Beijing, 1997, as well as those illustrated in colour plate
Centuries in Northern China: Tz’u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D., op.
XXI-1 of the same volume. Interestingly, however, the distinctive and
cit., p. 214). Vases of this form with similar decoration produced using
elegant rendering of the peony blossom on the Linyushanren bowl relates the same decorative technique but with only colourless glazes were made
closely to similar decoration, created in similar decorative technique,
at Guantai, as can be seen from colour plate IX-2 from sector T5(5) and
found on remains from the Quhe 曲河 kiln site at Dengfengxian 登封縣,
black and white fgure XXIII-2 from sector T10(5) in The Cizhou Kiln
Henan, dated to the late 10th-early 11th century and published by Feng
site at Guantai, op. cit. Copper-green lead-fuxed glazes were used at
Xianming 馮先銘 in ‘Henan Mixian, Dengfengxian Tang Song guyaozhi the Guantai kiln site with a range of decorative techniques, as evidenced
diaocha’, Wenwu 河南密縣, 登封縣 唐宋古窯址調查, 1964, no. 3, p. 53,
by the sherds illustrated in colour plates XXIX-5, XXX and XXXI in
fg. 12-4. Another interesting aspect of this bowl is the way it has been
The Cizhou Kiln site at Guantai, op. cit., but this volume only appears to
fred. On the interior base of the bowl are three small spur marks, which
illustrate two sherds on which the green glaze is combined with the upper
suggests that it was one of several bowls fred in a single saggar and kept
black slip cut from the lower white slip sgraffato technique (see black and
white fgure LXVIII-5 in The Cizhou Kiln site at Guantai, op. cit.). It is
worth noting that the majority of green-glazed Cizhou vases of this form
have decoration that is painted in black onto the lower white slip, with
only details incised through the black slip.
The technique of creating decoration by applying a black slip over a
white slip and then cutting areas of black slip away is one that could
only be attempted by a very skilful ceramic decorator, who understood
his materials and had a steady hand. It is also a technique which seems
to be unique to Cizhou wares, and appears to have been prevalent at the
Cizhou kilns – particularly Guantai - in the late 11th and 12th centuries.
Amongst the most magnifcent of the vases with this type of decoration
are meiping vases decorated with bold peony scrolls between upper and
lower borders of long, slender, S-form overlapping petals – an example
of which from the Linyushanren Collection is included in the current
catalogue (lot 516). Decorative links with the fne white wares from the
Ding kilns can be seen when these Cizhou vases are compared with Ding
ware meiping vases such as the famous example from the collection of Sir
Percival David (illustrated by R. Scott in Imperial Taste - Chinese Ceramics
from the Percival David Foundation, Los Angeles/San Francisco, 1989, p. 25,
no. 5). The Ding vase is also decorated with a bold peony scroll below a
band of long, slender, S-form overlapping petals, while the lower border
has a band of wider, upright, overlapping petals or leaves. It seems very
likely that the Linyushanren meiping was made at the Guantai kiln site,
since a number of details of the design accord well with a sherd found
at Guantai and published by Li Huibing in ‘Cizhouyao yizhi diaocha’,
Wenwu, op. cit, pl. 6:1. Not only do the shapes of the leaves conform,
Lot 510
拍品510號 but the peony petals have the same scalloped edge and there is the same

The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics 古韻天成 — 臨宇山人珍藏（三） 50