Description
This bowl has a flared mouth, deep belly walls, and a small ring foot. A shallow groove runs just under the mouth rim on the inner side, and the design is slightly different from "tapered-mouth bowls," which have a clear groove. The ceramic body is thick and heavy, and has been covered in thick flowing black glaze. The glaze on the exterior surface of the bowl does not extend to the bottom, and the glaze layers are thin near the top and thicker toward the bottom. The mouth rim has a reddish-brown "brown-mouthed edge," and on the exterior surface of the bottom, traces of flowing glaze from areas of thicker piled glaze can be seen. The glaze surface bears yellow striations that resemble the fur of wild hares, and thus such works were referred to by the Song people as "hare's fur tea bowls." On the underside of the bowl, the character, "Lu," has been inscribed in standard script. Brewing tea by dripping hot water onto tea flakes and holding tea competitions was quite popular among the Song literati, and in order to accentuate the white foam that appeared after dripping hot water onto tea flakes, as well as facilitate the discernment of water traces, the black-glazed tea bowls of the Jian Kiln, with their thick ceramic bodies capable of holding heat, eventually became very popular at that time, and such vessels were often mentioned in tea poems from that era.