Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

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Cizhou ware vase with floral decoration and foliated rim

  • loan

Glossary (3)

glaze, slip, stoneware

  • glaze

    Vitreous coating applied to the surface of a ceramic to make it impermeable or for decorative effect.

  • slip

    A semi-fluid clay applied to a ceramic before glazing either to coat the surface or for decorative effect.

  • stoneware

    Ceramic material made of clay which is fired to a temperature of c.1200-1300⁰c and is often buff or grey in colour.

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Publications online

  • The Barlow Collection by the University of Sussex

    The Barlow Collection

    This piece, which is inscribed in ink with a date, has often been used as evidence for dating a whole range of painted ‘Cizhou’ ware. The date, however, is inscribed on a double base, which most probably was added later. Although the base fits very well in shape and size, the custom of adding a separately made base to a vessel is not known from the Jin dynasty (1115–1234).

    The partly illegible inscription reads ? yu ? ? nian wu yue chu (‘beginning of the fifth month of the … year of the …yu period’) and the date has been interpreted as ‘eleventh year of Chunyu’, a reign period of the Southern Song dynasty, the year corresponding to 1251. Neither the first character of the reign name, nor the figure are clearly legible, however, and it seems surprising to find a piece made in North China to be inscribed with a Southern Song date.

    The vase has a wide shoulder, a narrow waisted neck which flares to a foliated five-lobed rim, and rests on a wide foot, which is supported on a separately attached, conical plinth. The shoulder shows two grooves. The buff stoneware is slipped, painted in iron-brown with a floral sprig on both sides, each with a pendant pointed bloom among foliage, and covered with a crazed, yellow-tinged transparent glaze, which stops around the foot. The support is unglazed, the joint hidden under white slip. The underside of the support is inscribed in black ink with eight Chinese characters.

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