The bottle is of the approximate void form with low sloping shoulders, a wide slanted mouth rim, and a narrowing at the foot to the flat base. The vessel’s surface is marked with a series of concentric wheel-produced shallow grooves circling the vessel horizontally from above its mid-section, growing fainter toward the mouth of the vessel. A bright, amber-colored glaze coats the exterior, stopping in an irregular line short of the base, which is left unglazed, exposing the pinkish-buff-colored body and spilling over the mouth rim, circling the unglazed interior. It appears that a thin white-slip wash was applied to the body, some splashing lightly on the base, as a foundation for two thin layers of glaze producing the rich amber color,
This shape of the bottle is similar to the standard meiping, a form produced in China, Korea and Japan over many centuries. The present bottle is, however, more significantly related to the “chicken leg” bottles–tall narrow vessels with concentric grooves covering the vessels from bottom to top, designed as containers for libations and a shape exclusive to the Khitan (or Qidan) peoples of the Liao dynasty ruling a good number of prefectures in north China, as well as non-Chinese bordering territories, between the early 10th to the early 12th century (fig. 1).
Tang potters provided the foundation for the lead-silicate glazed Liao ceramics and especially the late Tang penchant for monochromism, which resulted in a large production of monochrome green and monochrome amber wares, as exemplified by the pair of green-glazed vessels illustrated here and the present amber vessel (fig.2). The pinkish-buff bodies are much harder than the typical Tang earthenwares and a white slip is not uncommon under the colorful glazes. Provenance and dating are established by their presence in Liao tombs. A most interesting find was the tomb of Zhang Wenzao, excavated in Hebei province in 1993, in which a low wooden table was laden with numerous dishes still containing foodstuff and most of them with amber glazes like the present.
Fig. 1: A black-glazed “chicken-leg” bottle, Liao dynasty, Art Museum of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, after Jenny So, ed., Noble Riders from Pines and Deserts: The Artistic Legacy of the Qidan, Hong Kong, 2004, no. VII:15, p. 333.
Fig. 2: A pair of green-glazed ceramic bottles, Liao dynasty, after Ryō no tōjiki (“Liao Ceramics”), Tokyo, 1992, pl. 89, p. 67.
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