Yaozhou stoneware deep bowl with impressed decoration

A thinly potted stoneware bowl supported on a short, straight foot, the deeply rounded sides terminating in a lipped rim.  The interior of the bowl is mould-impressed with a dense design of an open lotus flower on a leafy stem, with added details applied with a metal comb.  The outside of the bowl is undecorated.  The bowl is entirely covered in a translucent olive-green glaze, which pools to a slightly darker tint in the recesses.  The underside of the foot is unglazed, showing the fine grey stoneware.

•  This classic stoneware bowl was made in one of the Yaozhou kilns, which were mostly situated around Huangbao and Chenlu in present-day Tongquan county, Shaanxi province in northern China; hence the now somewhat outdated term for this ware: ‘Northern celadon’. Strong, relatively simple forms, competently carved with angled tools or impressed with moulds and covered in homogenous olive-green glazes that appear to give the decoration a three-dimensional effect, are all characteristic of fine quality Yaozhou ware.  According to Kerr: ‘Like Ding ware, the finest Yaozhou products were requisitioned for court’.1   The decoration of an open lotus flower would appear to be quite rare.  A bowl moulded with flowers, decorated in similar technique, is in the Meiyintang Collection.2  

1. Kerr, R. Song Dynasty Ceramics, Victoria and Albert Museum Publications, London 2004, p. 52
2. Krahl, R. Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume One, Azimuth Editions, London 1994, no. 431, p. 240