22. HENAN BLACK-GLAZED HEXAFOIL LEYS JAR
Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127)
5 1/4" (13.3 cm.) wide

The neck flares out from a compressed globular body into a rim with sharply articulated undulations. The thick unctuous glaze is of a deep blackish tone thinning to russet around the rim applied over a brown coloured wash visible in the interior and around the base of the vessel. This is a particularly successful example of the zhadou shape of the Song period with a finely balanced contrast between the rounded sides and the sharply everted floral rim.

No other black-glazed bowl of these exact proportions and dramatic undulations at the rim appears to have been published. A Cizhou-type jar of this form is published, Heaven and Earth Seen Within: Song Ceramics from the Robert Barron Collection, New Orleans Museum of Art, 2000, exhibition catalogue no. 25. This jar provides an interesting contrast with its taller, ribbed neck and gently everted rim. The closest examples in form would appear to be a series of Yaozhou celadon zhadou with carved decoration, all of which have floral rims with sharply everted undulations. See The Masterpieces of Yaozhou Ware, The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 1997, exhibition catalogue nos. 32 and 145. Both of these have slightly splayed feet; no. 32 is pierced around the footring.