The jar is well potted with a wide mouth and high rounded shoulders tapering to the countersunk base. Two coats of glaze appear to have produced the complex color appearing black with lighter shadows of greenish-brown and draining to brown on the thick rim. Two abstract birds in flight, their tails ending in fat swirls sweeping over the lustrous mirror black glaze, were painted in iron that fired to a russet color on the glaze. On the interior walls of the jar the glaze goes matt while an unglazed medallion at the bottom reveals the somewhat coarse stoneware body, also visible on the strongly cut unglazed foot surrounding the glazed base.
The russet-colored painted designs on dark-glazes range from simple dots and stripes to images interpreted as floral sprays on the one hand and birds, usually described as phoenixes, on the other; there is clearly not consistent agreement what a particular motif represents likely because of their rather abstract presentations. For example, two similar jars in the Yeung Wing Tak collection are each described as being decorated with “iron floral sprays on a black glaze” (figs. 1-2), whereas a similar design on a jar in the Victoria and Albert Museum is described as decorated with images of birds (fig. 3).
These ceramics are frequently referred to as “black” wares due to the black appearance of the glaze in natural light, although under strong illumination the true deep brown color is apparent. “Northern temmoku” and “Henan temmoku” are other appellations applied to these wares, terms which recognize their relationship to southern dark-glazed wares produced in Jiangxi and Fujian and called temmoku by their Japanese champions but at the same time highlighting their place of origin. These ware provided an impressionistic, somber alternative to the more lively décor of the painted and sgraffiato wares which were being produced simultaneously and side by side at a number of kilns, which included sites in, Hebei, Shanxi and Shaanxi and Shandong. The present jar may well have been produced in either Henan or Hebei, homes of the most refined of these wares and perhaps at Guantai, the important and immensely productive Cizhou kiln, known to have produced almost all manner of these northern stonewares, including the russet on black under consideration here. Comparable ceramics, however, as in the case of figure 1 here, have also been ascribed to Yaozhou in Shaanxi, known primarily for their “Northern Celadons” of the Song and Jin periods but with a history of black ware production going back to the Tang dynasty. So, it’s not a closed case!
Fig. l: Black-glazed jar with russet painting, attributed to the Yaozhou kiln, Shaanxi province, after Black Porcelain from the Mr. & Mrs. Yeung Wing Tak Collection, Guangzhou, 1997, no. 50.
Fig. 2: Black-glazed jar with russet painting, attributed to Henan province, after Black Porcelain from the Mr. & Mrs. Yeung Wing Tak Collection, Guangzhou, 1997, no. 51.
Fig. 3: Black-glazed jar with russet painting, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, after Basil Gray, Sung Ceramics, London, 1984, pl. 96, p. 121.
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