2 1/2 x 7 1/8 in (6.5 x 18 cm)

Jun Ware Drum-Nail Brush Washer

Dimensions: D: 7 1/8 in (18 cm); H: 2 1/2 in (6.5 cm)

This refined brush washer exemplifies the supreme aesthetic of Jun ware, the celebrated stoneware of the imperial workshops at Yuzhou (modern Henan province). The vessel takes a generous circular form rising on three small flange feet through softly waisted sides to a flat everted rim, the surface articulated above and below the body with two raised bands of small drum-nail (guding) studs that provide architectural punctuation against the dramatic glaze and lend the form its distinctive name.

The vessel is dressed in the celebrated Jun celadon glaze of luminous blue-grey tonality, the thick opalescent glaze produced by the firing of copper-rich pigment under reducing conditions, the surface displaying the characteristic subtle suffusion in which deep aubergine and luminous violet pool unpredictably across the field. The glaze breaks subtly along the raised drum-nail studs and the rim, where the underlying body shows through as the characteristic warm tonal contrast, and the unglazed base may bear a numerical inscription incised before firing.

Numbered Jun drum-nail brush washers are among the most prized categories of Northern Song imperial stoneware, the type produced exclusively for use in the imperial study and palace alongside the numbered flower pots. Comparable Jun brush washers are preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and the Sir Percival David Collection at the British Museum, where they occupy the absolute pinnacle of the international market for Song imperial stoneware.