B4 A Song black “Bai Fu Lun” bowl of Cizhou type with white rim

Description

Description:   Chinese Northern Song black bowl of Cizhou type with contrasting white rim and of conical shape. In Chinese they are called Bai Fu Lun (White covered rim). There is an ink written Chinese character on the base.

Dating:  Song period, 11^th / 12^th century

Size:  12.6 cm diameter

Provenance:  Carlo Cottarelli collection. About this collection, read Provenance and Notes of the ceramic snuff bottle C2

References:  See last three pictures, bowls sold by Christies.

Notes:  In our opinion, how these white-rimmed bowl was made is not clear. In the literature, it is usually said that the bowls were dipped in the black glaze, then the rim was wiped out, and then dipped in the white glaze. See for example “Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers” by Robert Mowry, at page 132, Bowl 31. That is not possible. It is true that at least the black glaze has been applied by dipping the bowl, as proved by the signs of potter’s nails that we can see around the foot in two pictures. But all the bowls of this type that we have handled, including our one as seen in his last picture, has a step at the matching borders of the two glazes, which means that the rim was scraped; then most probably after the first dipping the rim was scraped, not wiped off. At that point, the bowl has the black glaze and the bare rim. It is not possible that the rim has been glazed by dipping, because on all these bowls the white rim has the same width inside and outside the bowl. If dipped, the inner width should obviously be wider than the outer one, if the air inside the bowl was somehow not trapped. Instead, if the bowl is dipped vertically and the air is trapped, the rim will be narrower. Another possibility is that bowl was angled and rotated with a constant width dipping of the rim, but that would be almost impossible to do by hand. It must also be considered that there are some of these bowls where the white rim is only inside, which is totally excluding an application of the glaze by dipping. More probably, the white glaze was applied by brush, in which case the scraped step would help a lot in granting a glazes matching line uniform.