Ref: W747
£ 1,250
Price is subject to availability and market conditions.
Qingbai bowl, Song (960 - 1279), rising from a narrow foot to an everted unglazed rim, decorated with a whitish-blue glaze and incised to the interior with boys playing amongst scrolling lotus and other flowers, the exterior left undecorated and the foot unglazed.
Notes:
Qingbai wares, whose name translates to 'blue white', were developed in Jiangxi province during the Northern Song. The icy blue colour is caused by iron impurities in the glaze reacting with the smoky atmosphere of a reduction kiln. Dragon kilns (lungyao) were especially common in southern China, and relied on wood for fuel, which resulted a 'reducing' atmosphere where oxygen levels are lowered and metallic oxides convert to their reduced metallic state. Rims were sometimes left unglazed, as seen in this example, so that vessels could be stacked one on top of the other in the kiln without glaze fusing them all together.
