An extremely rare persimmon-glazed floriform bowl, Northern Song dynasty | 北宋 醬釉葵花式盌

Collection of Dr. Cornelius Osgood (1905-1985). 

Cornelius Osgood博士（1905-1985）收藏

This persimmon-glazed bowl is extremely rare due to its unusual floral form, rarely seen on brown or black-glazed wares of the Song dynasty. The design, likely based on a mallow flower, which represented longevity and a fulfilling life, is more commonly found in lacquer, metal and other ceramics, including Ru, Guan and Ding. During the Song dynasty there existed a close dialogue between monochrome ceramics and lacquer wares, and the russet-brown glaze of this bowl is particularly reminiscent of a group of brown-lacquered mallow-form dishes, such as one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated James Watt and Barbara Brennan Ford, East Asian Lacquer: The Florence and Herbert Irving Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1991, cat. no. 2.

Dr. Cornelius Osgood (1905-1985) was a professor of anthropology at Yale University, New Haven, and a leading scholar of the cultures of the Arctic and East Asia. Joining the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale in 1930, Osgood became the curator of its anthropology department in 1934 and was appointed the Peabody's associate director in 1966. He built up a strong collection of Chinese porcelain, with many works acquired from Frank Caro.