Early Northern Song Dynasty, 10^th/11^th Century. Henan or Shaanxi Province. Diameter 7.0” (17.7cm), height 2.9” (7.5cm)

The persimmon (sometimes called russet) glazed is one of the finest and rarest of the Song Dynasty glazes. On early high class pieces, particularly thinly potted dishes and bowls, it was often used to emulate contemporary lacquer ware – which had itself been brought to a high state of perfection. The present piece is superbly and thinly potted in a fine grain, very pale grey stoneware body. The shape itself is a splendid combination of the Chinese conical ‘wan’ type of bowl at the base and the more rounded ‘bo’ shape with inverted lip and wide mouth at the top. As such it is a remarkable example of the potter’s desire to experiment with new forms in the early Song period. It is meticulously glazed and finished both inside the shapely incurving rim and on the outside, right down to the neat square cut footrim. The glaze itself has a lustrous appearance and silky touch which, together with the beautiful shape, gives the piece a remarkably tactile appeal.

Examples of early persimmon glazed wares are quite sparse in leading collections worldwide. A number of pieces are described by Mowry (Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers 1996), variously dated and attributed to the northern kiln complexes of Ding, Yaoshou and Cizhou. Regina Krahl (Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Vol 1, 1994) illustrates three pieces from the collection in buff/grey stoneware bodies, one of which is a lobed dish of slightly larger diameter than the present bowl. He Li (Chinese Ceramics- The New Standard Guide, 1996) shows a small lobed jar in the San Francisco Museum, on a whitish Ding-type body. Compared with the present bowl, a somewhat smaller bowl of the more usual rounded ‘bo’ shape is in the Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong (Exhibition Catalogue 1991).

PROVENANCE & AUTHENTICATION?

The present piece has been in an English private collection for over 15 years and is further authenticated by an Oxford Thermoluminescence Test Certificate, dated October 2004.