Vase with floral scrolls

After the Northern Song, the bottle shape in the north was streamlined—as in this case—into an oval body on a footring. The cizhou decorative method was applied, first incising the outlines of the motif and then glazing with colors. The incised lines on the buff-colored body are set off by green and yellow glazes on a white-slipped background. In Shanxi (WW 1978.4: 11) and Hebei the same shape was, during the Jin, more often decorated in monochrome glazes (WW 1977.11: 15). Incising and carving techniques declined after the cataclysmic warfare in the north. The simplicity of this form and the roughness of the decoration are characteristic of the period.