Item number: P8

Year: AD 1127-1368

Material: Porcelain

Size: 14.7 x 6 cm

Provenance: Guang Ya Zhai 2026

This is a pair of bluish-white glazed moulded square vases.

The vases feature square mouths with everted, relatively heavy rims—a vessel shape that, generally speaking, was primarily popular in the north. They possess long necks, pyriform bellies, and thick, slightly splayed square feet. Formed with four flat sides, the body is entirely covered in qingbai glaze, which displays a pale bluish-grey hue, pooling into a deeper blue in the recessed areas. The unglazed base reveals a clay body of a buff-to-yellowish-brown tone. Qingbai ware was an important product of the Jingdezhen kilns during the Song and Yuan Dynasties, characterized by a white clay body coated in a transparent qingbai glaze with low iron content. The resulting glaze colour falls between white and celadon; due to the varying depth of the glaze pooling within the carved or moulded decorations, it produces a warm, subtle shading effect. Beneath the glaze on the upper part of the vase belly, some coarse cracking within the clay body is visible which, alongside the bluer glaze coloration, points to a relatively late period of production.

These vessels were decorated using a moulding or stamping technique. The front face of the belly is adorned with a “flower vase” motif, depicting flower branches emerging from a vase and spreading gracefully to the left and right; the neck and shoulder are decorated with a continuous scroll of foliage on all four sides. The flower-in-vase motif carries dual connotations of both floral aesthetics and ritual offerings, corresponding to the function of such small-scale vases as decorative items, altar vessels, or flower containers. The square body, square mouth, and square foot mimic ancient bronze forms, imparting an archaistic and decorative quality. This indicates that, beyond utilitarian wares, Song and Yuan qingbai porcelain had expanded to include vessel categories related to ritual offerings, scholarly appreciation, and spatial decoration.

The present pair of vases displays a well-proportioned form with a slightly robust, rustic feel, featuring clear moulded designs and the characteristic tonal variations of qingbai glaze pooling within the raised reliefs. Their shape and decoration can be understood within the qingbai porcelain system of Jingdezhen from the late Southern Song to the Yuan Dynasty, reflecting the contemporary developmental shift from simple incised or carved decoration towards moulding, three-dimensionality, and ornamental display. Square-shaped vessels were assembled from separately joined clay slabs; during the firing process, they were highly prone to cracking due to uneven thermal stress, making them relatively rare. Similar vessel shapes are uncommon but can be found in northern systems such as the Cizhou kilns of Hebei, as well as southern systems like the Dakou kilns of Pucheng, Fujian.

During the Tang and Five Dynasties periods, northern China was dominated by the white porcelain of the Xing kilns (described as “like snow”), while southern China revered the celadon of the Yue kilns (described as “like ice”), establishing a geographical divide of “southern celadon and northern white”. The Jingdezhen kilns of the Five Dynasties period primarily employed the method of stack-firing with overlapping spurs. In the Northern Song period, the kilns shifted to firing vessels upright within individual saggars, which eliminated spur marks on the bodies. They also utilized high-quality local single-source china stone to formulate the clay body, paired with a heavy lime glaze high in calcium carbonate, fired under high-temperature reduction. This glaze possessed excellent fluidity in a strong reducing atmosphere, rendering the fired porcelain “white where the glaze was thin, and water-green where it pooled”, perfectly presenting a jade-like texture that was “blue within white, and white emerging from blue”. This ware was colloquially dubbed yingqing (“shadow green”) and enjoyed immense popularity. By the late Northern Song to the Southern Song period, to meet the massive domestic and overseas market demands for utilitarian eating and drinking utensils, the Jingdezhen kilns adopted the stepped-saggar and multi-tiered ring collar-based inverse firing methods originating from the Ding kilns. This led to a dramatic increase in the output of mangkou (unglazed-rim) porcelain, producing daily utensils and religious wares such as warm bowls, ewers, incense burners, cosmetic boxes, and ceramic sculptures. These products were not only distributed widely across northern and southern China, but were also exported in vast quantities to Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia through the offices of the maritime trade superintendency.

Following the unification of China under the Yuan Dynasty, the government established the Bureau of Fuliang Porcelain in Jingdezhen—the nation’s sole official administrative body overseeing ceramic production—which directly stimulated the reorganization and prosperity of the local industry. During this period, Jingdezhen reformed its raw material formulas, pioneering a binary recipe of “china stone plus kaolin clay”. The rich alumina content in kaolin clay significantly enhanced the fire-resistance and deformation-resistance of the clay body, enabling the mass-firing of large, heavy vessels such as meiping (prunus vases) and large jars, whilst also giving rise to innovative forms with distinct northern nomadic characteristics, including yi (spouted pouring vessels), domu jugs, and monk’s cap ewers. However, the higher iron content in the kaolin clay meant that the body of Yuan qingbai porcelain was not as pure white as that of the Song Dynasty, and the glaze tended towards a more greenish-blue hue, losing its formerly clear, translucent jade-like quality. By the mid-to-late Yuan Dynasty, with the successful introduction of high-temperature underglaze painted wares like blue-and-white and underglaze red, as well as high-temperature monochrome glazes such as egg-white (shufu) glaze, the aesthetic taste of Yuan society shifted decisively towards painted decoration and diverse glaze colours. Consequently, qingbai porcelain entered a period of decline in the late Yuan Dynasty, marking the transition into an era dominated primarily by decorated and painted porcelains.

物件編號: P8

年代: 公元 1127-1368 年

材料: 陶瓷

尺寸: 14.7 x 6 cm

來源: 廣雅齋 2026

這是一對青白瓷模印四方瓶，。

此對瓶方口，瓶唇外折且較厚重，一般而言是主要流行於北方的器型。長頸垂腹，方足較厚且稍微外撇。器身四面成形，通體施青白釉，釉色淡青微灰，積釉處呈較深青色。底足露胎，胎色泛米黃褐。青白瓷為宋元時期景德鎮窯重要品類，以白瓷胎施含鐵量較低的透明青白釉，釉色介於白釉與青釉之間，因凹凸紋飾處積釉深淺不同，形成溫潤含蓄的陰影效果。瓶腹上方釉下可見胎質出現粗糙裂紋，與較青的顯色一同暗示了較晚的時期。

此器為模印或印花，腹部正面飾瓶花紋，花枝自瓶中生出，左右舒展；頸部與肩部飾卷草花葉紋，四面連續分布。瓶花紋兼具花卉與供養意涵，與此類小型瓶器的陳設、供器或插花功能相呼應。方形器身、方口與方足是模仿青銅器器型，使之帶有仿古與陳設意味，顯示宋元青白瓷在日用器之外，也發展出供奉、賞玩與空間裝飾相關的器類。

本對瓶形制規整而略帶厚拙感，印花紋樣清晰，釉面在凸起紋飾間呈現青白釉特有的深淺變化。其器形與裝飾可置於南宋晚期至元代景德鎮青白瓷系統中觀察，反映當時青白瓷由單純刻劃花裝飾，逐漸走向模印、立體化與陳設化的發展趨勢。方瓶器型由泥片拼接而成，在燒製過程中極易因應力不均而開裂，故較為少見。類似器型較為少見，但在河北磁州窯、福建浦城大口窯等。

在唐代與五代時期，中國北方以邢窯白瓷為主（「雪類」），南方則以越窯青瓷為尊（「冰類」），呈現「南青北白」的格局。五代時期的景德鎮窯主要採用「支釘重合疊燒法」。北宋時期，改用匣缽仰燒，避免了器身上的支釘痕，並利用當地優質的單一瓷石製胎，配以高含碳酸鈣的重石灰釉進行高溫還原燒製。這種釉料在強還原焰中流動性極佳，使燒成後的瓷器「釉薄處泛白，積釉處呈水綠色」，完美地呈現出「白中閃青、青中顯白」的如玉質感，因而也被世人俗稱為「影青」，大受歡迎。到了北宋晚期至南宋，為了解決海內外市場對生活飲食器具的龐大需求，景德鎮窯引進了定窯的「支圈組合式覆燒法」，使得芒口瓷產量大增，產生的溫碗、注子、香薰、瓷盒與瓷塑等日用品和宗教器物，不僅行銷大江南北，更通過市舶司大量銷往日本、朝鮮與東南亞各地。

隨著元朝統一中國，元政府於景德鎮設立了全國唯一的官方瓷業管理機構「浮梁瓷局」，這直接促進了景德鎮瓷業的重組與繁榮。此時的景德鎮改革了原料配方，首創「瓷石加高嶺土」的二元配方法，高嶺土中富含的氧化鋁大大提升了坯體的耐火度與抗變形能力，使批量燒製大型、厚重的器物如梅瓶、大罐成為可能，並創燒了匜、多穆壺、僧帽壺等極具北方游牧民族特色的新品種。然而，高嶺土中偏高的鐵質導致元代青白瓷的胎體不如宋代潔白，釉色也更顯青綠而失去了以往清澈透亮的玉質感。到了元代中後期，隨著青花、釉裏紅等高溫釉下彩器以及卵白釉等高溫彩釉的創燒成功，元代社會的審美趣味徹底轉移到了彩繪裝飾與多元釉色上，青白瓷因而在元代後期走向衰落，進入以彩瓷為主的時代。