a fine 'Ge' square brushwasher Southern Song / Yuan dynasty

of quatre-lobed form with elegantly indented corners, the flared sides rising steeply from the foot, covered overall in a fine pale-grey glaze suffused with an attractive dark-grey crackle with tinges of russet-brown, the slightly countersunk base with four spur marks at the corners revealing the iron-grey body

Christie's Hong Kong, 24th October 1993, lot 703.

This small washer represents one of the classic Song shapes made for the scholar's desk. Only very few counterparts are known of this form. A similar piece in the Percival David Foundation, London, is included in the Foundation's Illustrated Catalogue of Ru, Guan, Jun, Guangdong and Yixing Wares, London, 1999, no.68. One from the Muwen Tang collection, included in the Min Chiu Society Thirtieth Anniversary Exhibition Selected Treasures of Chinese Art, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1990-91, cat.no.111, was sold in our London rooms, 12th November 2003, lot 3; and another from the Edward T. Chow collection, 16th December 1980, lot 293.

Whereas the present piece, with its neutral glaze colour and distinct dark-stained crackle would be classified as 'ge' ware, a Song ware celebrated in classical Chinese texts on connoisseurship, a related piece in the Palace Museum, Beijing, with a more greenish-grey glaze and a more muted crackle, has been identified as guan; the Palace Museum's washer, which is similar in form but quite different in proportions, is published in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (II), Hong Kong, 1996, pl.21.

This washer must initially have been potted extremely thinly, as most of the width of the walls is taken up by the extremely thick glaze. This exhibits the characteristic and highly prized craquelure termed jinsi tiexian, 'gold thread and iron wire', in which a primary glaze crackle appears darker charcoal-grey, possibly enhanced through staining, which is then suffused with more delicate secondary crackle of a golden-brown tone. Such primary and secondary craquelure would be unattainable without the extreme thickness of the glaze, and the concommitant manipulation of rapid heating and cooling, an innovation developed within the Ge kilns.