Cizhou ware vase with floral decoration and foliated rim, Cizhou kiln-sites, 12th - 13th century (1101 - 1300), Jin Dynasty (1115 - 1234), stoneware, thrown, covered in white slip, and with brown slip-painted decoration under a transparent glaze; unglazed base, with ink inscription; glazed rim, 20.3 cm (height) - 9.4 cm (diameter) - at base 7.4 cm (diameter). Lent by the Sir Alan Barlow Collection Trust., LI1301.187, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford © The University of Sussex

This piece, which is inscribed in ink with a date, has often been used as evidence for dating a whole range of painted ‘Cizhou’ ware. The date, however, is inscribed on a double base, which most probably was added later. Although the base fits very well in shape and size, the custom of adding a separately made base to a vessel is not known from the Jin dynasty (1115–1234).

The partly illegible inscription reads ? yu ? ? nian wu yue chu (‘beginning of the fifth month of the … year of the …yu period’) and the date has been interpreted as ‘eleventh year of Chunyu’, a reign period of the Southern Song dynasty, the year corresponding to 1251. Neither the first character of the reign name, nor the figure are clearly legible, however, and it seems surprising to find a piece made in North China to be inscribed with a Southern Song date.

The vase has a wide shoulder, a narrow waisted neck which flares to a foliated five-lobed rim, and rests on a wide foot, which is supported on a separately attached, conical plinth. The shoulder shows two grooves. The buff stoneware is slipped, painted in iron-brown with a floral sprig on both sides, each with a pendant pointed bloom among foliage, and covered with a crazed, yellow-tinged transparent glaze, which stops around the foot. The support is unglazed, the joint hidden under white slip. The underside of the support is inscribed in black ink with eight Chinese characters.