Printed from Woolley & Wallis

Description

A RARE CHINESE DING ‘DRAGON’ BRUSH WASHER
NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY

With tall straight sides and a flat base, the interior is elegantly incised to the centre with a roundel of a single dragon amongst freely drawn scrolls encircled by two bands of square scrolls and with a third band to the exterior. The white body covered overall with an ivory-tinged glaze, the rim bound with metal, 18.3cm.

Ding ceramics were the earliest true porcelains made in China, and the world. Ding wares were often fired sitting upside down with their weight resting on their rims. This strategy served to spread the weight of the object and to guard against any malformation of their thinly potted bodies during the firing. Because of contact between the rim and the ground of the saggar, the rims were often left unglazed and later covered with metal. This is a typical feature of Ding ware.

The steep sides on the present washer appear to reference a metal prototype. Rose Kerr writing on the collection of Song ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, states that the “fact that Ding ware was an official ware made one feature of its decoration especially pronounced. This was its tendency to mimic other, more precious materials such as gold and silver, huge quantities of which were stored in palace treasures”. Cf. Rose Kerr, Song Ceramics, p.102.

Cf. The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (I), p.88, no.79 for a related Song Dynasty Ding ware washer, see also Sotheby's Hong Kong, 4th April 2017, lot 3216 for a similar Ding dish.

北宋 定窯白釉刻花龍紋洗