Page 56 - Chinese and Asian Ceramics from an Indonesian Collection

Chapter 4. Glazed Ceramics in the Musi River

Figure 27. Foliated bowl, with glassy crackled sancai glaze, front
half of bowl repaired, height 6.5 cm, mid to Late Tang
Dynasty, Hebei Province, Xing kilns. C8–C10, from
the Musi River, Boom Baru site. Catalogue No. K2122.

Figure 29. Ewer with rope handle, degraded white glaze, height
13.3 cm, Tang Dynasty, Hunan Province, C9, from the
Musi River, Boom Baru site. Catalogue No. K2499.

quality functional containers for storage and shipping
domestically and internationally (see Chapter 6, Glazed
and Unglazed Storage Vessels).
However, in addition to transport jars other wares
were exported from the Guangdong kilns including
Figure 28. Bowl, with degraded green splashed lead glaze, bowls, dishes, basins and ewers. Koh (2017a) illustrated
height 6.2 cm, Mid-Tang Dynasty, Henan Province,
Gongxian kilns, C9, from the Musi River, Boom Baru several crudely made bowls collected from beneath the
site. Catalogue No. K2394. Musi which he considered were made during the Tang
Dynasty at Guanchong and neighbouring kilns (such as
Gaoming/Heshan). The bowls had small foot rings and
russet and black mineral organic paint, now somewhat flat bases; both had a watery green glaze over much of
degraded. Its style of full face and figure was popular the surface except the lower outer body and foot. He
from the mid-8th to the mid-9th century. We have some described their distinctive feature as patches in their
doubt as to the age of this figurine, however, because well left by clay lumps used as separators to stack them
it retains more of the mineral paint than would be during firing. We collected six such bowls which appeared
expected for an object that was under water for so moderately common in the Musi. They varied from a pale
long. Further, such figurines were frequently copied grey-green (K1105) to a blue-grey (K1871). Of interest,
until the modern era. Stevenson and Guy (1997, Plate 30) attributed several
similar bowls to North Vietnam made during 9th or 10th
century. It has been suggested that these dishes were also
General Guangdong Province ceramics used as lids for larger storage jars and that the remains
Kilns in Guangdong province made comparable Yue-type of the clay lumps assisted the lids to position firmly on
ceramics during the Tang and early-Song Dynasties that the rim of the jars.
were inferior to true Yue ware produced in Zhejiang Small Tang Dynasty green celadon ewers (Figure 26)
Province. These Guangdong green celadon wares were made in Guangdong Province were common in the Musi
frequently found in Indonesia (Adhyatman 1987). The (K867, K965, K982, K1289, K1300, K2607).
improvement in true Yue fine tableware during the later
Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties meant that only a few Sancai wares
Guangdong kilns were still able to compete. Consequently, Very few examples of Tang Dynasty lead glazed three
most Guangdong kilns, particularly along tributaries of coloured (yellow, green and amber) sancai wares are
the Pearl River delta, focused on production of lesser known to have been exported to South East Asia. Those

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