Bowl

The Yaozhou kilns in Shaanxi province perpetuated the green-glazed stoneware tradition of northern China. They did so under the influence of earlier glazed wares produced in southern China during the late Tang dynasty and the Five Dynasties (ninth and tenth centuries). The Art Museum’s delicately potted bowl is glazed in the characteristic Yaozhou olive-green, a color resulting from the iron oxide in the glaze when the ware is fired in a reduction atmosphere. During the firing process, the nearly transparent glaze pools in the carved or molded recesses of the vessel surface, creating a darker tone that accentuates the decoration.

Floral motifs, especially featuring the peony and the lotus, are abundant on Yaozhou ceramics. The peony, which symbolizes wealth and rank, was the most popular cultivated flower in Song dynasty China, and it is praised in treatises of that period. The Art Museum’s bowl is decorated with a finely executed motif of intertwined pairs of herbaceous peony (shaoyao) blossoms, repeated three times on the interior. This flower, which is mentioned in a late Tang dynasty book of poetry, sometimes served as a farewell gift and a token of love.