BOTTLE, porcelain with sgraffito design of peony scrolls carved through underglaze iron-brown slip 白磁銹花 牡丹唐草文 瓶はくじしゅうか ぼたんからくさもん へい

Description

This type of bottle, having a unique form with a small mouth, like a meiping vase with the bottom half being cut off, is known as taibozun or tuluping. The white porcelain body was covered with an iron slip and then the background was carved away, resulting in showing the peony scroll in iron brown emerging from the white porcelain ground. While this decoration is an application of the decorative technique of Cizhou ware to Ding white porcelain, such work is not so commonly found in Ding ware. A ceramic pillow with a decoration executed in a similar technique, bearing an inscription in black ink that can be read purchased in the first year of Huangtong (1141) of the Jin dynasty, is housed in the National Museum of China, suggesting that this decorative technique has made a certain degree of development in the Jin dynasty.