The top floor of the museum hosts a large collection of ceramics and glass: Chinese ceramic wares spanning different dynastic periods; a number of white, light blue and green-glazed (Ying Qing and Qingbai) wares from the Tang (AD 618-960) and Song (AD96-1279) dynasties. It also holds Japanese ceramics and a collection of Bristol blue glass.
One of the things that really struck me how 'modern' some of the ceramics which were made centuries ago looked, just like the pieces that contemporary ceramicists are making today. I am recording some of those here, in this post.
Chinese Jun ware progagly from Linxurian in Henan; Jin (1127-1234) dynasty or later:
Stoneware bowl, painted in an opaque glaze doloured sky-blue with iron with a streak of crimson in copper
The technique of splashing the sky-blue Jum glaze with copper, adopted under the Manchurian Jin regime, may have been suggested by knowledge of the use of copper in the lustre wares of contemporary Iran.
Celadon wares from the area around Lung-ch Uan-hsien, Chekiang Province, from c1137 AD onwards. The kilns, which cover large areas of Southern Chekiang, were working before that date, and have never ceased production, though the quality and the techniques have varied. Wares from these kilns have adorned th Courts of Saladin, Suleiman the Magnificent, Shah 'Abbas and Louis XV. One piece reached Oxford as early as 1530.
Black-glazed stonewares were first made in the Hangchow area in the 4th or 5th century AD. Under the T'ang (618-907) new types of black-glazed ware appeared in North China, and improved versions remained popular in the Northern Sung (960-1126), Chin (1126-1234) and Yuan (1234-1368) dynasties.
The reappearance of black wares in South China may have been a result of the flight South of the Sung Dynasty after the catastrophe of 1126.
A flimsier but more inventively decorated white-bodied type was made at Chi-chou in Kiangsi Province.
Some more:
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