J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York

This famous type of Jizhou tea bowl decorated with the mark of a natural leaf in the glaze is one of the most celebrated of all Song ceramics made for tea use.

A similar leaf-decorated conical tea bowl in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in the catalogue of the special exhibition, Trésors du Musée national du Palais, Taipei: Mémoire d’Empire, Paris, 1998, p. 155, no. 97, and was previously illustrated in Songci tezhan mulu (Illustrated Catalogue of Sung Dynasty Porcelains), Taipei, 1978, p. 50, no. 20. Compare also examples in the Tokyo National Museum, from the Hirota Collection in Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum: Chinese Ceramics I, Tokyo, 1988, p. 166, no. 668; in the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, illustrated in Yūkyū no kōsai: tōyō toji no bi (The Eternal Beauty and Luster of Oriental Ceramics), Tokyo, 2012, pp. 62-63, no. 34, previously illustrated in Chūgoku tōji meihin ten: Ataka korekushon (Masterpieces of Old Chinese Ceramics in the Ataka Collection), Tokyo, 1975; in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated by Tseng and Dart in the catalogue of The Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts: Boston, Vol. II, Boston, 1972, no. 131; and in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, illustrated by Wirgin, ‘Some Ceramic Wares from Chi-Chou,’ B.M.F.E.A. Bulletin No. 34, Stockholm, 1962, pl. 1a-b.

Another leaf-decorated Jizhou tea bowl of similar size and form, discovered in 1962 at Nanchang, Jiangxi province, now in the Jiangxi Provincial Museum, is illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan: Taoci juan (Compendium of Chinese Archaeological Treasures: Ceramics), Hong Kong 1993, p. 294, no. 415.

The method of producing the leaf decoration on these bowls is generally understood, but some debate and discussion of specific details continues. Robert Mowry, in his introductory essay entitled, ‘Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics: An Overview,’ published in Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers: Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics, 400-1400, Cambridge, 1996, offers the succinct and convincing explanation that the decoration was “... apparently created by affixing a leaf … to the interior of a bowl before immersing it in the standard dark brown glaze. In the heat of the kiln, the chemicals naturally present in the leaf reacted with the glaze, robbing it of its dark brown color and rendering it transparent.”