Object Details
Culture
China
Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279)
Medium
Porcelain with pale blue-green glaze
Dimensions
Overall: 8 3/4 × 5 1/2 × 5 1/2 inches (22.2 × 14 × 14 cm)
Ewer alone: 5 3/4 × 4 1/4 × 5 1/2 inches (14.6 × 10.8 × 14 cm)
Cap: 3 1/8 × 1 5/8 × 1 5/8 inches (7.9 × 4.1 × 4.1 cm)
Credit Line
George and Mary Rockwell Collection
Object
Number
81.110 a-c
The term qingbai, or “clear white,” was first used by the Chinese in the thirteenth century to descr(…)
The term qingbai, or “clear white,” was first used by the Chinese in the thirteenth century to describe the hard, thin white-bodied wares that we call porcelain today. Traces of iron oxides in the glazes of qingbai ware cause the faint blue-green tone that is one of the great attractions of this group of early ceramics, and the lightly incised lines enable the glaze to thicken slightly and allow us to see a delicate overall floral pattern on the clay body of both the bowl and the ewer. This type of wine ewer, with its own warming bowl shaped like a lotus that gently envelops its occupant, was first used in the Northern Song period, but it was in the Southern Song that these ewers and bowls reached the high level of refinement made possible by the discovery of new deposits of white-burning clays in the south of China. (From “A Handbook of the Collection: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,” 1998)
