The five-piece set is formed of light grey stoneware, each piece covered with a white slip, decorated in dark brown slip painting, all beneath a clear glaze. The ewer is a perfect oval with a short spout and ‘rope twist’ handle decorated with floral motifs divided by a series of triple vertical lines. Each saucer has matching triple lines evenly spaced around the angled, flared rims and is raised on a ring foot. The bowls are shallow with flared rims emphasized by a dark brown line border.
Miniature ceramic vessels of this type are comparatively uncommon, and complete services are particularly rare. While individual miniature ewers or cups from northern kilns—including those associated with the Cizhou tradition—do appear in museum collections and occasionally on the art market, sets comprising several coordinated elements are seldom preserved intact. Their small scale and fragile nature likely contributed to their dispersal over time.
A related saucer-and-bowl set is illustrated in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. 1 (Tokyo), no. 578 (fig. 1), and another in the Carl Kempe Collection, published in Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Ceramics in the Carl Kempe Collection (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1964), no. 492 (fig. 2).
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Fig. 1: Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. 1, Tokyo: Mayuyama & Co., Ltd., 1976, no. 578.
Cup and saucer with painted black decoration Sung Dynasty
Hsiu-wu ware H. 4.3 cm.]
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Fig. 2: Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Ceramics in the Carl Kempe Collection, (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1964), no. 492.
Ch’ing-ho Hsien.
Ting type.
Northern Sung dynasty.]
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