Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

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Greenware kinuta, or mallet, vase with phoenix handles

  • loan

Glossary (5)

glaze, luted, phoenix, slip, stoneware

  • glaze

    Vitreous coating applied to the surface of a ceramic to make it impermeable or for decorative effect.

  • luted

    The fusion of parts of ceramics using dilute clay slip.

  • phoenix

    Mythical bird known as hōō in Japan. The Islamic tradition appropriated the far-eastern iconography of the phoenix and used it to represent another mythical bird, the simurgh.

  • slip

    A semi-fluid clay applied to a ceramic before glazing either to coat the surface or for decorative effect.

  • stoneware

    Ceramic material made of clay which is fired to a temperature of c.1200-1300⁰c and is often buff or grey in colour.

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Publications online

  • The Barlow Collection by the University of Sussex

    The Barlow Collection

    This shape is known by the Japanese term kinuta (‘mallet’), since pieces of this shape, with a fine even blue-green glaze, were particularly popular in Japan. The best Longquan glazes have, by extension, become known as kinuta glazes.

    The small vases have straight sides, a slanting angled shoulder, a tall cylindrical neck with a wide everted rim with raised lip, and two handles shaped in form of stylized phoenixes. The phoenix heads are shown in profile with crests and details raised in moulded relief, their long necks angled, the rudimentary bodies flanked by raised ribs to indicate wings. The even yellowish-green glaze shows a wide-meshed crackle. It covers the bases, but leaves the broad shallow footrings free, the biscuit having fired a yellowish-brown colour.

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