A RARE HENAN BLACK-GLAZED 'OIL SPOT' BOWL NORTHERN SONG – JIN DYNASTY | 北宋至金 河南黑釉油滴天目茶盞

Suichikudo, Tokyo.

翠竹堂，東京

This exquisite bowl is striking for its thick and lustrous dark brown glaze which is enlivened by unevenly scattered small silver speckles. These attractive speckles are seldom found on bowls of this type, and thus make this piece very special and rare. Carefully applied with a finger or small brush, they were made with an iron-saturated slip, which crystallised in the kiln and turned silvery during the cooling phase. This technique was most likely inspired by the yuteki (‘oil-spot’) tea bowls made at the Jianyang kilns in Fujian province, whose products peaked in popularity in the Northern Song period.    

Bowls of this form and with silver speckles are very rare and no other closely related example appears to have been published, although a black-glazed bowl of conical form with silvery speckles is offered in this sale, lot 97. Compare also a pair of bowls of conical form with lipped rims, decorated with large silvery mottles in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, included in the Museum’s exhibition Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell and Partridge Feathers. Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazes Ceramics, 400-1400, Cambridge, cat. no. 45a and b.