Page 240 - Bonhams Wen Tang Collectiont, October 2014 Hong Kong

211 Qingbai, or ‘clear white’, is a term used for hard-white-bodied
porcelain wares with a bluish-white glaze. The iron oxide in the glaze
A rare Qingbai melon-shaped ewer and cover mixture, fired in a reducing atmosphere, creates the characteristic
Southern Song Dynasty attractive faint ‘shadow’ blue tone seen on Qingbai ceramics. Most
Qingbai ewers, such as the present lot, derive their shape from metal
The ovoid body crisply and thinly potted with lobed sides, applied wares. This is particularly evident by the short floral flanges on the
with a pair of small upright flanges at the sides of the cylindrical neck, sides of the present ewer’s neck. The loops on the lid and handle
with a long curved spout and elegant strap handle, covered overall were made to secure the two together with a tie, which would have
with a pale sky-blue glaze, the similarly glazed concave cover with a consisted of a chain attachment in the original gold or silver vessels.
leafy bud finial.
20.5cm high (2). A very similar shaped lobed wine ewer and cover in the Royal Ontario
Museum, is illustrated in Qingbai Ware: Chinese Porcelain of the
HK$400,000 - 600,000 Song and Yuan Dynasties, Percival David Foundation of Chinese
US$52,000 - 77,000 Art, 2002, pp.126-127, no.64. Other similar lobed ewers, though of
slightly more compressed form, include: one registered in Japan as an
南宋 青白釉瓜棱壺 Important Cultural Object, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue The
Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics, An Exhibition of Song Treasures
from the Linyushanren Collection, Hong Kong, New York, London,
22 November 2012 - 14 May 2013, p.152-153, no.63; and another
formerly in the Carl Kempe Collection, illustrated by Jan Wirgin, Sung
Ceramic Designs, London, 1970, pl.29k.

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