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A rare, large Northern blackware bowl, the sides flare from a slightly spreading ring foot and turn up to form a vertical mouth rim; the interior and upper exterior are covered with a lustrous dark brown glaze with russet speckles, the interior with five large russet splashes. The glaze stops well short of the foot revealing the buff stoneware and thin caramel glaze under the darker glaze. The base is painted with the character Wang (a Chinese family name), which is repeated on the lower part of the bowl.
Northern Song or Jin dynasty, 12th/13th centuries
Diameter: 7 1/4”, 18.4 cm
It is unusual to find characters, particularly names, on early Chinese ceramics.
For bowls with a similar design, see Wiesner, Chinesische Keramik: Meisterwerke aus Privatsammlungen, no. 41, pp. 70-1; Noppe et al, Art Chinois Néolithique Dynastie Song: Collection Umberto Draghi, no. 86, p. 186; Mowry, Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell and Partridge Feathers: Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics, 400-1400, no. 42, p. 148; Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Vol. 1, no. 466, pp. 256-7; and, for an example with characters on the base, Black Porcelain from the Mr. and Mrs. Yeung Wing Tak Collection, no. 118, pp. 240-1.
