A rare ‘Jun' purple-splashed octagonal dragon-handled cup, Northern Song / Jin dynasty

Collection of the Chang Foundation.

Chang Foundation Inaugural Catalogue, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1990, p. 24.

James Spencer, Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1990, pl. 31.

This cup, awash with a sea-foam blue glaze and vibrant splashes of copper-purple, is a finely molded and extremely rare example of the creative ‘Jun’ wares produced in Henan around the twelfth century. 

Throughout the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties, potters across Northern China experimented with decorating wares with irregular splashes in contrasting glaze colors. The copper-red streaks on blue Jun wares, however, differ from the rest: they are not fortuitous drips and splashes, but rather color patterns applied with deliberation. Rose Kerr in Song Dynasty Ceramics, London, 2004, p. 34, notes that the splashes found on Jun wares were made with the application of copper in broad brush strokes or washes over dry bluish glazes, which then merged when fired at full heat. Like an abstract painting, the success of the overall effect therefore depends on the motion of the brush that dictates the distribution across the surface, and on the relative 'weight' of one color in relation to the other. This challenge has been superbly managed on the present cup, adding a vibrancy to the piece as if bringing its dragon handle to life.

Jun-glazed cups of this type with modeled animals are exceptionally rare with fewer than ten surviving examples apparently attested, almost all without the present purple splashes. Compare a closely related example of this type, similarly splashed with purple but with a more rounded head modeled after a tortoise, sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 20th May 1989, lot 669 and again 28th April 1998, lot 709.

For other known Jun examples of this dragon-headed variety without copper splashes, compare one of bright sea-foam blue tone, preserved in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Chugoku tōji zenshū [Chinese Ceramics in Chinese Collections], vol. 12, Kyoto, 1983, pl. 31; a second from the Ingram Collection, exhibited in Sung Dynasty Wares. Chün and Brown Glazes, Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1952, cat. no. 17; two illustrated in R. L. Hobson, The George Eumorfopoulos Collection. Catalogue of Chinese, Corean and Persian Pottery and Porcelain, vol. III, London, 1926, pl. XIII, nos C37 and C38, the former sold in our London rooms, 29th May 1940, lot 186; and two further examples included in The Arts of the Sung Dynasty, Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1960, pl. 25, cat. nos 40 and 41: the former with a grey-blue guan-like glaze from the Clark collection; and the latter – particularly similar to the present in modeling and form – from the collections of Captain Dugald Malcolm and the late Colonel Carson, sold in our London rooms, 29th March 1977, lot 140 and again, 7th June 1994, lot 275. 

A slightly smaller example of this type with a tiger’s head, was sold in our London rooms, 29th October 1925, lot 107; and a second of the same size and different animal head design in the City Art Gallery, Bristol, was exhibited in Mostra d’Arte Cinese / Exhibition of Chinese Art, Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1954, cat. no. 468.