The slightly bulbous stoneware body of the measuring jar rising from a flat base toward a slightly everted neck and rim. The lower body with incised decoration, the lower part of the neck with painting in brown slip. Covered overall in a bluish-white glaze with the base partly glazed.
A ‘Qingbai’ grain measure cup (Southern Song dynasty, 12th/13th century)
Description
Dimensions: 6.5cm high, 10.5cm diameter
Provenance:
Spink & Son, London, 10 October 1984 (invoice)
A private Belgian collection
The slightly bulbous stoneware body of the measuring jar rising from a flat base toward a slightly everted neck and rim. The lower body with incised decoration, the lower part of the neck with painting in brown slip. Covered overall in a bluish-white glaze with the base partly glazed.
This highly unusual Qingbai cup is part of a group of silver, hardstone, and ceramic vessels thought to have been made in imitation of basketwork rice measures. Vessels of this type first appeared in silver during the Tang dynasty- for example, one shown by Yamanaka in 1925 and illustrated in R.L. Hobson’s article, ‘A Tang Silver Hoard’ in The British Museum Quarterly, May 1926, pl. Xa. That example may have served as a prototype for similar cups produced during the Song dynasty.
Compare a near identical example in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Accession no. LI1301.55. A slightly smaller example was offered by Christie’s, 29 September 2022, lot 41.
