Japan Edo Period: Waste Water Bowl

Seto ware serving bowl or tea-ceremony wastewater bowl
19th century


Edo period

Stoneware with ash glaze; gold lacquer repairs
H: 9.7 W: 15.8 D: 15.8 cm
Seto, Japan 

Tea ceremony waste-water basin
mid 17th century

Nonomura Ninsei , (Japanese, active ca. 1646-77)
Edo period

Stoneware with ash glaze
H: 8.7 W: 17.4 D: 13.9 cm
Kyoto, Japan

Gift of Charles Lang Freer F1911.397

England 19th Century: Slop Basin

Place of origin:
Leeds, England (made)

Date:
1800-1820 (made)

Artist/Maker:
Leeds Pottery (maker)

Materials and Techniques:
Black Basalt

Credit Line:
Given by Mrs Kate Bentley

Museum number:
C.219-1914

Gallery location:
Ceramics Study Galleries, Britain, room 138, case 12, shelf 3

Slop basin
John & William Ridgway Enlarge image
Explore related objects

Category

Ceramics
Tea, Coffee & Chocolate wares
Bone China
Material

bone china
Subject

flowers
leaves
vine scrolls
Technique

painted
glazed
gilt
Name

John & William Ridgway
Place

Shelton (Stoke-on-Trent)
Gallery

Ceramics Study Galleries, Britain & Europe, room 139
Collection

Ceramics Collection
Slop basin

Place of origin:
Shelton (Stoke-on-Trent), United Kingdom (made)

Date:
ca. 1820 (made)

Artist/Maker:
John & William Ridgway (manufacturer)

Materials and Techniques:
Bone china, painted in underglaze blue, enamel colours and gilt

Credit Line:
Bequeathed by Mr R. E. Jerome

Museum number:
C.29E-1985

Gallery location:
Ceramics Study Galleries, Britain & Europe, room 139, case 17, shelf 2

England 18th Century : Slop Basin/Bowl

Place of origin:
Staffordshire, England (probably, made)

Date:
1760-1765 (made)

Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)

Materials and Techniques:
Earthenware, with moulded decoration and stained lead glaze

Museum number:
2273-1901

Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 53a, case 1

Place of origin:
Chelsea, England (made)

Date:
1759-1769 (made)

Artist/Maker:
Chelsea Porcelain factory (maker)

Materials and Techniques:
Soft-paste porcelain, painted in enamel colours and gilt

Credit Line:
Bequeathed by Miss Emily S. Thomson

Museum number:
520-1902

Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 52b, case 2

A Tea Service Complement - The Waste Bowl

Originally this particular tea implement was a huge silver piece used at a table into which bits of bone, rind and piths were flung into while the diners were eating. It was adorned with 2 handles on either side of the dish. These dishes or rather implements were used since ancient times. Among the many names that it went by were slop bowls, alms-dishes, voiders, waste-pots, or waste bowls. They came in varied shapes and sizes, made of different material. They were meant as containers into which scraps of unwanted food were put in so that the plate was cleared.

Slops bowls are more often misidentified and designated as a sweetmeat  bowl or a sugar bowl sometimes even a centerpiece bowl.

This particular utilitarian object was adapted and added to the equipment necessary for serving tea. These objects began to take its place in the formal tea service by the middle of the 18th century in the shapes of small circular or octagonal bowls. These bowls became standard equipment on the Tea table evolving from their ancestral cousin that stood as large bowls on a pedestal. In the 19th century the bowls lost their handles, remained circular, without a lid and was 2x as large as the sugar bowl in the Tea Service Set. The difference between the design of the sugar bowl and the slop bowl was that the slop bowl has a wide, projecting rim so as to prevent splashing during use.

They were called Slop Bowls and were used for pouring out the remaining cold tea from cups and teapots before a fresh brew was served.

Shui Fang/ Cha Yu - Waste Water Bowls - 茶盂

Waste water bowls are called Shui Fang or Cha Yu - water bowls. They are receptacles for used tea leaves, water and used tea brews, particularly in the Gongfu tea preparation method. In pre-Ming Dai practice, it is a bowl for storing fresh, unboiled water for tea preparation.
This is a tea tool that is part of the Gongfu tea setup as well as the Japanese Tea Ceremony.
In the English tea setup, these are called slop pots or slop basins. Their function is to collect cold tea brews, waste water as well as used tea leaves.
They are generally made of ceramic, like the traditional Zisha clays, or of porcelain with various glazes and silver.

Blue and White Ceramics of Vietnam

Blue and white ceramics are white porcelain that have patterns in blue cobalt-based glaze added and then are covered with a clear glaze, a technique known as underglaze blue. The technique prospered in Jingdezhen, China during the Yuan dynasty (1271 - 1368) and was introduced to Vietnam towards the end of the Tran dynasty (1225 - 1400). In Japan, Vietnamese blue and white ceramics are also known as Annan-yaki underglaze blue.

Initially reflecting the large influence of Chinese blue and white ceramics, the Vietnamese soon established their own distinctive style. From the 15th through the 16th century, large quantities of Vietnamese blue and white ceramics were exported to Indonesia and the Philippines. The hue of the porcelain is off-white, giving it a soft feeling, and the somewhat dull contrast between the blue and white areas is considered a special feature. Graceful and willowy brushstrokes form soft and elegant patterns, unlike the sharpness of Chinese blue and white porcelain. The blue and white ceramics from this time feature a blurred design, called shiboride in Japanese. At the start of the 17th century, as the amount of porcelain exported gradually decreased, artisans turned to making large candleholders and incense burners.

Courtesy of Tokyo National Museum
 

MING DYNASTY : Stem Cup

 

Object types
stem cup (all objects)

Materials
porcelain (all objects)
metal (all objects)
Techniques
doucai glazed

Production place
Made in Jingdezhen
(Asia,China,Jiangxi (province),

Jingdezhen)

Place
Found/Acquired China
(Asia,China)

Date
1573-1620 (circa)

Period/Culture
Wanli (probably) Ming dynasty 

 

Description
Porcelain stem cup with underglaze blue and 'doucai'-style decoration and metal-bound rim. This small stem cup has a round bowl with an everted rim bound with gilt-bronze and a solid flared stem with a recessed base. Inside it is plain and outside is painted in underglaze blue with a branch of a fruiting grape vine. The rim and foot are outlined in double blue lines. Coloured overglaze enamels - green leaves, brown branches, yellow tendrils and chocolate-brown grapes - have been added for a second firing. The base carries an apocryphal six-character Chenghua reign mark in a double ring.

Inscriptions
Inscription Type: mark
Inscription Position: base
Inscription Language: Chinese
Inscription Transliteration: Da Ming Chenghua Nian Zhi
Inscription Translation: Made in the Chenghua reign of the Ming dynasty
Inscription Comment: Apocryphal six-character Chenghua reign mark in a double ring.

Dimensions
Height: 6.2 centimetres
Diameter: 8 centimetres

Curator's comments
Harrison-Hall 2001:
Wine cups of this design were first made in the fifteenth century. A genuine Chenghua mark and period cup with the same design is in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London. The British Museum cup is, however, not a Chenghua original. It has a blue-white glaze which is quite distinct from the yellow-white porcelains of the Chenghua era. In addition to this the style of painting is much suffer on the present piece than on a Chenghua original. Moreover, an original Chenghua stem cup of this quality would have been destroyed at the kiln site for being substandard, as evidenced by a similar flawed cup which was discarded in the imperial kiln Chenghua period waste heap at Jingdezhen and was excavated there recently.
Chenghua porcelains were already collector's items in the Wanli period, approximately one hundred years after their manufacture. Ts'ai Ho-pi has gathered together several commentaries on these porcelains from the Wanli period. For example, the connoisseur and scholar Zhang Yingwen (fl. 1530-94), author of "Qing Mi Cang", wrote: 'There are also... Chenghua wucai grape cups... which are worth having....' And Shen Defu (1578-1642) recorded in the "Wanli Ye Huo Bian": '... but today Chenghua wares have become expensive, surpassing those of Xuande....' Some imitation Chenghua 'doucai' bear later Ming reign marks, while others imitate the original Chenghua mark.

Located at the British Art Museum

YUAN DYNASTY: Stem Cup

 

Chinese, Yuan dynasty, c. 1330-50
Jingdezhen ware, porcelain painted in underglaze cobalt blue with molded decoration
H. 4 in. (10.2 cm)

Loan from the Jinglexuan Collection

Located at the Seattle Art Museum

MEIJI PERIOD : Chadogu Netsuke

An ivory netsuke in the form of a cluster of chadogu "tea tools." Falcon feather haboki, chashaku, mizusashi, chairé, futaoki, chasen… all attractively arranged in a compact composition to serve the functional needs of a tea ceremony devotee.

Length: 4.0 cm

LIAO DYNASTY: Preparation of tea, mural

 

Preparation of tea, mural from a Liao dynasty (907–1125) tomb of 1093 showing the typical tea utensils of the Tang still in use

TANG DYNASTY: Royal Tea Set

 

The royal gilt silver tea set, unearthed from the underground palace of Famen Temple in 1987 and now preserved in the Famen Temple Museum, is the earliest tea set of the highest rank discovered in the world, which has become the greatest and most significant discovery for archeological study on the world tea culture.

The tea set includes a tea caddy weaved out of metallic yarn, a gilt silver tortoise-shaped tea box, a tea roller and a silver stove for cooking tea. Each piece of the set is a fine work with its gorgeousness constituting a rare state-of-the-art set with high artistic value, and a proof that China is the origin of tea culture.
The gilt silver tea box is exquisitely worked out in a height of 17.8cm. It is a compact four-footed tea box put with cattail leaves against dampness. It’s estimated that it can hold bunches of tea breads weighing half a kilogram or so.
The silver stove is 56.0cm high weighing 3920 grams. It is plain and neat made of sheet metal and consists of a cover and a stove frame.
The tea groove in the Tang Dynasty is in the same shape of today’s medicine grinder groove, which resembles a boat with a V-shaped transect, curved bottom and upturned ends designed in consideration of roller movements.
The gilt silver tortoise-shaped tea box features the tortoise back as its lid with the four legs and its head being hollow for the purpose of keeping tealeaves.
As a part of the tea set, the Tiao Da Zi (a kind of container for mixing tea) is used for tea mixing and drinking, since in ancient China, the tea drinking activity is to some extent just like having food. First you need to put tea into the container with appropriate spices. Then, pour in some boiled water and mix the tea into paste; lastly, you can add more water to make it into tea soup.
The salt plate is something used for placing salt, pepper and other spices by ancient people when preparing tea.

BY Explore Cultural China