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Conical Bowl with Carved Babies and Floral Motif
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
The conical shape of this bowl is especially suitable for whipping powdered tea, which became popular at court, in monasteries, and in scholarly elite circles during the Southern Song dynasty. The decoration of this bowl was cut with a wooden instrument into the dried clay. This type of white porcelain with a translucent bluish glaze was the direct predecessor of the later blue-and-white porcelains.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineConical Bowl with Carved Babies and Floral Motif, 960–1279. China, Song dynasty (960-1279). Porcelain with pale bluish-white glaze, qingbai ("blue-white") ware; overall: 7.8 x 20.3 cm (3 1/16 x 8 in.); diameter: 21.6 cm (8 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Donna and James Reid, 2017.19
