Pottery marbled bowl

A pottery bowl, the rounded sides rising in two stages from a short, tapered foot and terminating in a rolled rim.  The bowl is made from marbled clay, producing a striking design of mixed dark and light irregular stripes. The bowl is covered in a pale yellow glaze that leaves the base uncovered.  The foot is covered in a red wash.

•  The method of producing a marbled effect on a pottery vessel is known in China as jiao tai (mixed body) or jiao ni (mixed clay).  In this process, clays of white and brown (or more colours) are kneaded together.  The mixed clay may be used to form the entire body of the vessel or may be cut into veneers to be stuck onto a pre-modelled vessel, before the layer is coated in a layer of transparent glaze.  Different names, such as ‘wood grain pattern, ‘pheasant’s wing pattern’ or ‘feather pattern’, are given to the decoration, depending on how the clays are mixed.  This method, developed in the Tang dynasty, and petering out by the end of the Song dynasty (960 – 1279), attempted to imitate some decorative techniques employed on lacquer ware.  Vessels with this type of decoration are mainly cups, bowls, tripod trays and pillows.  In the Tang dynasty, such wares were fired in kilns in Gonxian, Henan province.1  The elegant design of this bowl is clearly based on a metal prototype and is found in both bronze and silver.  A bowl of identical form with a sancai glaze was found in the tomb of Princes Yongtai at Qianxian, Shaanxi, dated to 706.2  A smaller marbled bowl of metal shape is in the Gulbenkian Museum, University of Durham.3 

1. Wang Qingzheng A Dictionary of Chinese Ceramics, Singapore 2002, pp. 212-3
2. Watson, W. Tang and Liao Ceramics Thames and Hudson, London 1984, fig. 8, page 18
3. Watson, W. op. cit. no. 168, p. 167