Page 192 - Christie's Fine Chinese Paintings March 19 2019 Auction

PROPERTY FROM THE LINYUSHANREN COLLECTION
1710
A SUPERB JIAN ‘HARE’S FUR’ TEA BOWL
SONG DYNASTY (AD 960-1279)
The deep, rounded sides are covered inside and out with a thick, lustrous black the Daguan Era) of 1107, the Huizong emperor commented that “the desirable
glaze fnely streaked with silvery-brown ‘hare’s fur’ markings thinning to a colour of a tea bowl is bluish black and the best examples display clearly
matte dark russet-brown at the rim and pooling in a line above the neatly cut streaked hairs.” The current bowl is representative of the best tea bowls in
foot to reveal the buf ware fred to a dark purplish-brown color. The mouth rim Song dynasty, judging by the Huizong emperor’s criteria.
is mounted with a metal band.
Deep bowls with a groove below the rim such as the current example
5 in. (12.9 cm.) diam., silk pouch, Japanese wood box
represent the most iconic form of Jian ware tea bowls. The earliest dated Jian
ware example of this form was unearthed from a tomb dated to the second
$40,000-60,000
year of Jingkang (1127), in Wuyuan, Jiangxi province, and is illustrated in
Zhongguo wenwu jinghua dacidian taoci juan (Dictionary of Gems of Chinese
PROVENANCE Cultural Relics: Ceramics), Shanghai, 1995, p. 306, no. 460. A bowl of similar
Kochukyo, Tokyo, 1998. form and size unearthed from a Southern Song tomb dated to the frst year
of the Qingyuan reign (1195) is illustrated by Liu Tao, Dated Ceramics of the
EXHIBITED
Song, Liao and Jin Periods, Beijing, 2004, p. 123, fg. 9-6. Another similar
Tokyo, Kochukyo, Soji (Song Ceramics), 2 - 4 October 1998.
example found in the Yuan dynasty shipwreck in Sinan, South Jeolla, Korea is
Christie’s, The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics: An Exhibition of Song
illustrated in Relics Salvaged from the Seabed Of Sinan, Seoul, 1985, p. 106,
Treasures from the Linyushanren Collection, Hong Kong, 22 - 27 November
pl. 94.
2012; New York 15 - 20 March 2013; London, 10 - 14 May 2013.
During the Southern Song dynasty, tea drinking was customary in Buddhist
LITERATURE
Kochukyo, Soji (Song Ceramics), Tokyo, 1998, no.39. monasteries. The Southern Song dynasty painting Luohans Drinking Tea,
Christie’s, The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics: An Exhibition of Song from the set Daitokuji denrai Gohyakurakanzu (The Daitokuji 500 Luohan
Treasures from the Linyushanren Collection, Hong Kong, 2012, no. 38. Paintings) that were brought to Japan from China around the same time,
demonstrated that Jian bowls of similar form as the present bowl were well
Jian tea bowls were held in high esteem by Song scholar-oficial class and preserved in Buddhist monasteries. Together with Buddhist paintings, the
even the emperors. Cai Xiang (1012-1067), the famous calligrapher and high tradition of tea drinking and appreciation of tea bowls were introduced to
oficial in the Northern Song court designated the ‘hare’s fur’ tea bowls from Japan by Japanese monks who travelled to China. In fact the Japanese term
Jian’an the most appropriate utensil in serving tea in his two-chapter treatise for Jian ware tea bowls, tenmoku, is derived from the name of famous Zen
on tea entitled Cha lu (A Record of Tea). He believed the white tea looked Buddhism Mountain, the Tianmu Mountain outside Hangzhou. Over the
best in black-glazed bowls and the slightly thicker wall of Jian wares help to years, bowls such as the current example were treasured and handed down
retain the heat of tea. By the early twelfth century, the connoisseurship of by generations of Japanese connoisseurs.
Jian tea bowls were further developed by the Emepror Huizong (1082-1135).
In his twenty chapter treatise on tea, Daguan chalun (A Discourse on Tea in 南宋/金 建窯兔毫盞

(another view with box)
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