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

Pieces of this type were made by various kilns of north China. A related piece has been found at the main Cizhou site at Guantai in Ci county, Hebei province; see Guantai Cizhou yaozhi/The Cizhou Kiln Site at Guantai, Beijing, 1997, col.pl.XXII, fig.4, but the present piece may have been made elsewhere. Similarly striped bowls have been recovered from a Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) shipwreck in the sea off Liaoning province.

The globular bowl is of wide open shape, slightly inward curved at the rim, the broad, heavy foot is splayed. The centre inside is clearly marked. A glossy black glaze covers the inside and most of the outside, where it stops in an uneven line well above the foot, forming thick drops with attached kiln grit. The lowest part of the sides bears a very thin, light-brown transparent dressing, but the foot and base were left in the buff-coloured biscuit. The base has a firing crack. The inside of the bowl is decorated with thin radiating brown strokes, densely spaced around the sides. The glaze fades at the rim to a transparent layer.