Lotus pond bowl

The bowl is modelled in the form of an oval-shaped pond with fluted sides and everted rim containing four modelled children playing amongst stemmed lotus and two fish. It is decorated with splashed brown iron spots and covered with a 'qingbai' glaze. The flat base is unglazed.

Apart from the vividness of modelled children playing amongst lotus fish, worth noting is the decoration of the splashed brown iron spots. One aspect of the decorative innovations of the Yuan potters lay in the tentative experiments with painted underglaze decoration. The 'qingbai' wares with iron oxide seemingly randomly spotted and splashed over the vessels are the earliest experiments in underglazed decoration. However, among examples of the same type this piece may display the least random use of iron spotting, since each boy's hair is carefully indicated.

Asian Art Department, AGNSW, June 1999.