Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279)
covered with a very dark brown-black glaze showing slightly iridescent fine silvery ‘hare’s fur’ streaks cascading from the rim on the interior and exterior, the wide mouth with a narrow ‘finger groove’ lightly indented below the slightly flared lip, the glaze thinning over the rim to show a deep rust-brown color, the heavily potted flaring sides rising from a small round foot with shallow square-cut rim, the glaze on the exterior collecting at a knife-pared angle above the base and gathering in a thick droplet at one side, the exposed stoneware burnt dark purplish-brown in the firing.
Diameter 5 inches (12.7 cm)
A Jianyao ‘hare’s fur’-glazed tea bowl of this classic form in the Victoria and Albert Museum is illustrated by Kerr, Song Dynasty Ceramics, London, 2004, p. 113, pls. 115 and 115a. Another similarly glazed Song tea bowl of this form made at the kilns at Shuiji, Jianyang county, Fujian province is illustrated in Terre de Neige, de Glace, et d’Ombre: Quatorze siècles d’histoire de la céramique chinoise á travers les collections du Musée Guimet, National History Museum, Taipei, 1999, p. 154, no. 89, from the Marteau Bequest.
Compare also the Jian ware black-glazed tea bowl with ‘hare’s fur’ markings illustrated by Zhang (ed.) in Zhongguo chutu ciqi quanji (7) Jiangsu, Shanghai (Complete Collection of Ceramic Art Unearthed in China, Vol. 7, Jiangsu, Shanghai), Beijing, 2008, p. 133, no. 133, which was excavated at Huangyueling, Jiangpu district, Nanjing city from a tomb dated to the first year of Qingyuan (A.D. 1195).
宋 建窯黑釉兔毫紋盞 徑 12.7 厘米
Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279)
Diameter 5 inches (12.7 cm)