An inscribed Jizhou tortoiseshell-glazed bowl, Song dynasty 宋 吉州窰玳瑁釉盌 底銘「樂」字款

Acquired from Japan in the 1980s.

1980年代購自日本

Southern Song potters at Jiangxi province's Jizhou kilns developed this lively dappled glaze to apply to various forms of stoneware cups, bowls, and vases. Known in Chinese and English as 'tortoiseshell' glaze, it is characterised by an overall black-coffee color inflected with creamy tones ranging from deep amber to taupe, as seen on the present bowls. The effect seems to have been created by first dipping the vessel in a medium-brown slip glaze then, following the drying, dipping it in a darker brown glaze slurry, splashing it with a paste of wood or bamboo-ash and water, drying it again, and finally firing it right side up in the saggar.

Compare a slightly larger tea bowl in the Simon Kwan Collection was exhibited in Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1994, cat. no. 170.