Pillow, stoneware with coloured glazes, Cizhou ware, Jin dynasty, 1150-1234

Stoneware Cizhou ware pillow decorated with ducks in a lotus pond

Purchased with Art Fund support, the Vallentin Bequest, Sir Percival David and the Universities China Committee

Eumorfopoulos collection.

Rose Kerr:
Ceramic pillows were an important item of Cizhou manufacture and many colour-glaze examples from Henan province exist. The decoration is incised and painted on white slip beneath green, yellow and transparent lead glazes.
Note: Liao Dynasty potters continued a style of colour known to collectors as sancai. This pillow was decorated in this 'song sancai' style. The sides have a characteristic bamboo-leaf and flower-bud pattern. Its main elements are delineated by lines carved through slip and glaze - a way of trying to control the spread of different colours during firing.
Chapter 5: Northern 'Popular' Wares - Cizhou
'Cizhou' covers a wide variety of wares manufactured in many different kilns in many northern provinces. Made during Liao Dynasty to late Qing Dynasty. Range of body types, glazes and decorative techniques. Were domestic wares and not made for export.

Margaret Medley:
Tz'u-chou wares - white slip covers greyish or buff stoneware. The carving is done with a fine blade held at a slight angle and the incising is done with a fine point.
Cizhou: buff or grey-firing clay is typical of northern coal fields. The slip is made from secondary (i.e. sedimentary) kaolins.

This pillow is an example of Cizhou ware, a type of ceramic made in the northern part of China during the Jin dynasty (1115-1234). The term Cizhou encapsulates a range of wares made in several regions of northern China, often consisting of a stoneware body decorated with a bold design.

Ceramic pillows were an important item in the kilns producing Cizhou wares, and were made for both funerary use and as a neck support for the living. The stoneware body of this piece has been glazed in a modified version of the sancai three-colour scheme of the Tang dynasty, known as Song sancai.

C.828-1936