Ru ware
| Ru ware | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 汝窯 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 汝窑 | ||||||||
|
|||||||||
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Rǔ yáo |
| Wade–Giles | Ju3 yao2 |
Ru ware, Ju ware, or "Ru official ware" (Chinese: 汝窯) is a famous and extremely rare type of Chinese pottery from the Song dynasty, produced for the imperial court for a brief period around 1100. Fewer than 100 complete pieces survive, though there are later imitations which do not entirely match the originals. Most have a distinctive pale "duck-egg" blue glaze, "like the blue of the sky in a clearing amongst the clouds after rain" according to a medieval connoisseur, and are otherwise undecorated, though their colours vary and reach into a celadon green. The shapes include dishes, probably used as brush-washers, cups, wine bottles (carafes in modern terms), small vases, and censers and incense-burners. They can be considered as a particular form of celadon wares.
Ru ware represents one of the Five Great Kilns identified by later Chinese writers. The wares were reserved for the Imperial court, with according to one contemporary source only those they rejected reaching a wider market. The source, Zhou Hui, also says the glaze contained agate, and when the kiln site was located in recent decades it was indeed very close to a site for mining agate, which is very largely composed of silica, a usual component of ceramic glazes.
Ru ware is perhaps the first "official ware" specifically commissioned by the imperial court. Their normal practice seems to have been to review the large quantities of tributary ware given to them, keeping what they wanted and redistributing the remainder as part of their lavish gifts to officials, temples, and foreign rulers, and perhaps also selling some. Production ended when, or shortly before, the kilns were occupied by the invaders who overthrew the Northern Song dynasty in the 1120s, but the wares remained famous and highly sought after.
The pieces are mostly fairly small, for drinking, use at a scholar's desk, incense burning, or as small containers. There are a few oval "narcissus vases", which is to say planters for daffodils. Many pieces have a subtle crazed or crackled glaze, though there is some evidence that the most admired are those without this, and the effect was not deliberate. Those shapes that are not simple pottery forms show derivation from other media such as metalwork or lacquer, for example the bottomless cup-stand, which is a common shape in both. Most shapes have a "clearly defined, slightly splayed foot-rim". A very few pieces have decoration, with a "lightly impressed floral design".
...
Wikipedia