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15. RARE DINGYAO FLORAL-SHAPED DISH
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The mallow-shaped dish is very thinly potted. The exterior of the walls have been carefully pared down to the desired thinness distinctive of Ding wares of this period. The glaze has a very light tint of ivory to the interior, the exterior with areas of running glaze more often referred to ‘tear drops’. The area around the foot is indented with fingernail marks where the dish was held in the dipping process of glaze application. From the distinct knife markings of the pared walls and the thicker and sturdier foot ring, this dish probably dates to the earliest part of the Northern Song period. The mallow shape appears rarely in white wares of the 9th and 10th centuries. Fragments of a dish of identical shape excavated in 1978 at Quyang county, Hebei province, is recorded in Zhongguo Taoci Quanji, vol. 9, Dingyao, Shanghai, 1981, pl. 3. The base of this dish is inscribed with the characters xinguan (new official). A complete example inscribed with only the guan (official) character on the base, but attributed to the Xing kilns is published by Bo Gyllensvard, Chinese Ceramics in the Carl Kempe Collection, catalogue no. 338. |
