唐,九世紀 耀州窯黑釉瓜棱形執壺
The ewer is well potted with a tall melon-shaped upper body tapering to a splayed foot and supporting a widely flared mouth linked by a strap handle to the shoulders on one side, opposite a short upright spout. A rich black glaze is applied to the inside of the mouth and to the exterior of the whole ewer, falling short of the base to reveal the fine-grained high-fired ware.
Although becoming the major producer of fine green-glazed stoneware in the north of China during the Song dynasty, the Yaozhou potters in the Tang dynasty made mostly black, black and white, and tea-dust glaze wares. In this phase of their production the kilns are often referred to as the Huangpu kilns. The present ewer is a fine example of their best production.
A closely comparable example, but with a dark ‘tea-dust’ glaze, excavated in 1991 from the Yaozhou kiln site at Huangpu village, Tongchuan city, Shaanxi and now in the Yaozhou Ware Museum is illustrated in The Masterpieces of Yaozhou Ware, no. 124, p. 96. Two similar ewers are illustrated in 唐代黄堡窑址下朋 “Excavation of a Tang kiln-site at Huangpu in Tongchuan Shaanxi”, nos 2 and 3 on p. 56 (LVI).