bowl BM-1947-0712.321

Period:Ming dynasty Production date:1426-1435
Materials:porcelain
Technique:glazed, underglazed,

Dimensions:Diameter: 18.50 centimetres Height: 8.50 centimetres

Description:
Porcelain bowl with monochrome copper-red glaze. This bowl has rounded sides and an everted rim and stands on a broad tapering foot ring. Inside and out it is covered with an exquisite xian hong [fresh red] glaze which has receded from the rim, leaving the pure white porcelain body of the bowl exposed beneath a transparent glaze. The white base is marked with an underglaze blue six-character Xuande reign mark in a double ring.
IMG


Comments:Harrison-Hall 2001:Red glazes are the most difficult to achieve as the colourant, copper oxide, is extremely volatile. During the Xuande era the finest underglaze red porcelains were made. The surface of this bowl reveals layer upon layer of different shades of red flecks. A narcissus bowl, Xuande mark and period, excavated in 1993 at Zhushan, has an identical glaze to the present bowl. Quality controls at Jingdezhen were exceptionally vigilant in the Xuande era. In recent years, shards from rejected porcelains have been excavated and reassembled by archaeologists working at the Ceramic Institute in Jingdezhen. A Xuande mark and period bowl of the same shape as the present example, but with a failed red glaze, was unearthed at the imperial kiln site at Zhushan in 1993. Bowls of the present type were also marked with incised six-character Xuande marks. An example is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei. Further monochrome red Xuande bowls of this size are also known with impressed dragons in the cavetto.