The large egg-shaped bottle was potted from a relatively coarse, grey-colored stoneware clay, the two halves luted horizontally and is supported on a strong slanted foot, the thick foot ring surrounding the recessed base. The cylindrical neck with everted mouth rim is surrounded by four strap handles, their surfaces marked with grooves, each handle looping from the base of the neck to the shoulder. A thick creamy-white slip covers the upper part of the vessel where it provides a ground for the brown slip-painted decor: two imaginative mountains comprised of a series of concentric wavey bands and clouds in the skies between them developed as spirals of white incised on grounds of brown slip. The whimsical landscape and skyscape occupy roughly the upper half of the vessel above the lower half entirely covered in chocolate-brown slip. Two wide bands circle the shoulder below the neck, which are quick jabs of the brush and also brown applied to the lip rim, with a dab of glaze at the center of the base. The entire piece, with the exception of the foot ring and base, is covered with a colorless, transparent glaze.
Two massive four-handled wine jars are also decorated with the eccentric mountains of the current piece, one with abstract floral, according to the description (fig. 1) and the other with dragon and phoenix and characters on the shoulder listing the seasons (fig. 2). Another with the same mountains is finished with clouds simply painted as spirals (fig. 3). While such quite eccentric mountain designs are relatively uncommon in later Cizhou wares, the swirling clouds on the other hand fill the skies on numerous Yuan-period vessels of this ilk.
A great number and variety of décor, datable to the Yuan on the basis of tomb and kiln site finds, the occurrence of the Mongol phagspa script, related wares with datable inscriptions and particularly one related guan jar that was recovered from the Sinan shipwreck datable to 1323. Their function as wine containers is supported by a good number of inscriptions decorating their surfaces that refer to wine and wine-drinking.
Fig. 1: Large Cizhou-ware bottle, Yuan dynasty, after Feng Xiaoqi, ed., Cizhou yao ciqi yanjiu, Beijing, 2013, fig. 10, p. 274.
Fig. 2: Large Cizhou-ware bottle, Yuan dynasty, excavated in Tianjin, Tianjin Center for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, after Zhang Bai, ed., Zhongguo qutu ciqi quanji: vol. 2, Tianjin, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Beijing 2008, no. 32, p. 32.
Fig. 3: Large Cizhou-ware bottle, Yuan dynasty, Palace Museum, Beijing, after Ye Zhemin, ed., Zhongguo Cizhouyao, Shijiazhuang City, 2009, p. 359 (bottom).
Details:
