https://emuseum.cornell.edu/internal/media/dispatcher/95629/fullWine ewer and warming bowl, qingbai wareOverall: 8 3/4 × 5 1/2 × 5 1/2 inches (22.2 × 14 × 14 cm);
Ewer alone: 5 3/4 × 4 1/4 × 5 1/2 inches (14.6 × 10.8 × 14 cm);
Cap: 3 1/8 × 1 5/8 × 1 5/8 inches (7.9 × 4.1 × 4.1 cm)Porcelain with pale blue-green glazeGeorge and Mary Rockwell Collection81.110 a-c0A wine ewer with a lid and its own warming bowl shaped like a lotus. Ewer has a cylindrical neck, wide shoulders that taper down to smaller foot ring, a slender curved spout, and strap handle with a single groove. Shoulder incised with peony designs; lower body plain except for incised lines marking "panels." Lid is incised with petal design on the side, modeled as finial is an auspicious imaginary creature that looks like a dog or lion. Bowl has high walls, with a slightly everted, scalloped rim; the body is lobed and incised on the outside with floral designs underglaze. Glaze runs halfway down inside. (HFJ Handbook)Ceramics18309115141Unidentified artistChinaThe term qingbai, or "clear white," was first used by the Chinese in the thirteenth century to describe the hard, thin white-bodied wares that we call porcelain today. Traces of iron oxides in the glazes of qingbai ware cause the faint blue-green tone that is one of the great attractions of this group of early ceramics, and the lightly incised lines enable the glaze to thicken slightly and allow us to see a delicate overall floral pattern on the clay body of both the bowl and the ewer. This type of wine ewer, with its own warming bowl shaped like a lotus that gently envelops its occupant, was first used in the Northern Song period, but it was in the Southern Song that these ewers and bowls reached the high level of refinement made possible by the discovery of new deposits of white-burning clays in the south of China. (From “A Handbook of the Collection: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art," 1998)Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279)81.11081.110.2ndview