Page 74 - Sothebys Important Chinese Art London May 2018

Potted and glazed to sit e% ortlessly in the hand, this striking
bowl epitomises the aesthetic and literati spirit of the Song
dynasty (960-1279). Its simple yet robust form and bold,
irregular purple splashes had an immense appeal to the literati
and nobility of the time due to their simple yet ß amboyant,
calligraphic e% ect, giving each vessel decorated in this manner
its unique design.
Since the Northern Qi (550-577) and throughout the Tang
(618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties Chinese potters in
many di% erent manufactories created wares decorated with
irregular splashes in contrasting glaze colours. The copper-
red streaks on blue Jun wares, however, di% er from the rest:
they are not fortuitous drips and splashes, but colour patterns
that were applied with deliberation. Rose Kerr in Song Dynasty
Ceramics, London, 2004, p. 34, notes that the splashes found
on Jun wares were made with the application of copper in
broad brush strokes or washes over dry bluish glazes, which
then merged when Þ red at full heat. Like an abstract painting,
the success of the overall e% ect therefore depends on the
motion of the brush that dictates the distribution across the
surface, and on the relative ‘weight’ of one colour in relation to
the other. This challenge has been superbly managed on the
present bowl.
Similar examples are included in some of the world’s most
prestigious collections of Chinese ceramics, including one
in the Palace Museum in Beijing, illustrated in The Complete
Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Porcelain of the
Song Dynasty (I), Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 222; and another sold
in our New York rooms, 15 September 2010, lot 303. Bubble
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bowls with larger vibrant areas of splash on the interior include
one from the Eumorfopoulos collection and now in the Victoria
and Albert Museum, London, illustrated in Rose Kerr, Song
Dynasty Ceramics, London, 2004, pl. 26; another from the
Sir Percival David collection and now in the British Museum,
London, published in Stacey Pierson, Illustrated Catalogue of
Ru, Guan, Jun, Guangdong and Yixing Wares in the Percival
David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1999, pl. 44; and
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a third bowl sold in these rooms, 8 November 2006, lot 55,
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and o% ered in our Hong Kong rooms, 3 April 2018, lot 3605.
Two famous ‘Jun’ bubble bowls from the Edward T. Chow
collection, perhaps the best extant examples, were both sold in
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these rooms, 16 December 1980, lots 264 and 265, and again
in these rooms, the former on 19 May 1987, lot 209, and later
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in the T.T. Tsui collection; the latter on 7 June 2000, lot 93.
‘Jun’ ware, the most spectacular of the major Song dynasty
wares, with its type site represented by the Juntai kilns in
Yuzhou, Henan province, was produced by many di% erent
manufactories in Henan, including the Ru kilns at Qingliangsi in
Baofeng, probably from the end of the Northern Song period
(960-1127) until at least the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).

72 SOTHEBY’S