27. A green-glazed pottery leaf-shaped washer
The washer is modelled in the form of a large leaf furled into a bowl shape, forming blunt spouts on each side and with numerous indentations and projections on the inturned rim. The underside is moulded in relief with intertwined veining and small boss-like elements. A lead glaze of light green colour covers the washer inside and out, pooling to a deeper tone around the irregular rim.
Provenance:
Private English collection
Often described as resembling a sea shell (compare no. 13 in this catalogue) washers like the present example are more likely to be models of a type of leaf, perhaps dried, that was used by Tang scholars as a makeshift brushwasher, the ephemeral nature of which would have appealed to their sensibility. Pottery models like the present one, like fossils, are all the evidence we have that such vessels existed.
A sancai-glazed version excavated in Gongyi and in the collection of the Gongyi Museum was exhibited at the exhibition Three-color Ware of the Tang Dynasty. The Henan Province Discoveries and is illustrated in the catalogue produced by the Suntory Museum, no. 73, p. 102.
For another example, see Early Chinese Ceramics from The Postan Collection, an exhibition held by Bluett & Sons in November 1972, item 2; and for one in the collection of the late Charles B. Hoyt with an amber glazed outside and green inside, see The Charles B. Hoyt Collection Memorial Exhibition, no. 100, p. 26.
Dimensions: Length: 12.5 cm, 4 ⅞ inches
Date: Tang dynasty (618-906)
Price: On Request