Conical Jizhou Bowl Decorated With Leaf                          

Southern Song dynasty, 12th to 13th century                

Jizhou ware: ivory white stoneware with brownish-black glaze.

Yonghe kilns, Ji’an, Jiangxi Province.

Diameter 15.5 cm   Height 5.5 cm

This finely potted bowl is of conical shape with thin straight walls rising from the small circular foot. The interior and exterior of the bowl are covered with a brownish-black glaze apart from the roughly cut low footrim which reveals the ivory-coloured stoneware body burnt to a pinkish-red colour during firing. The interior is decorated with the imprint of a single leaf burnt blue and amber in the firing. The beautiful shape and crispness of the leaf down to minute details like the veins and its beautiful greenish-blue colour are exceptional.

Similar Examples:

Leaf-decorated Jizhou bowls are among the most celebrated tea bowls of the Song dynasty and fine examples are extremely rare. However, a number of tea bowls of this type are recorded and the ones in the Gotoh Museum of Art, Tokyo and the National Palace Museum, Taipei appear to be most similar to the present example:

In the Gotoh Museum of Art, Tokyo (Registered as an Important Art Object):

Mayuyama & Co. Ltd., Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, p. 221, pl. 668.

In the National Place Museum, Taipei:

National Palace Museum, Taipei, Illustrated Catalogue of Sung Dynasty Porcelains, Taipei, 1978, p. 50, pl. 20.

In the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka and two Japanese private collections:

Tokyo National Museum. Special Exhibition: Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo, 1994, p. 144-45, pls. 210-212.

In the Tokyo National Museum:

Tokyo National Museum, Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum: Chinese Ceramics, Vol. 1, Tokyo, 1988, pp. 166-67, pls. 668-670.

In the Shanghai Museum:

Chūgoku Tōji zenshu, Vol. 15: Jizhou, Kyoto, 1986, pls. 45 and 76.

In the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm:

Jan Wirgin, 'Some Ceramic Wares From Chi-Chou,' Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, no. 34 (1962), pl. 1.

In the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto:

Royal Ontario Museum, The T.T. Tsui Galleries of Chinese Art, Toronto, 1996, pl. 90.

In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:

Hsien-Ch’i Tseng and Robert Paul Dart, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Vol. 2, Boston, 1972, pl. 131.