Bowl with landscape, one of a pair

The kind of flowing, lyrical landscape depicted here was well represented in Tang-Song poetry. Much influenced by ink paintings, the line work on this ceramic piece is drawn over the colored areas. The fisherman is returning with fish, and the wood gatherer is ready to return home. The ox adds to the secular scene. In the far ground over the waves are immortal mountains set with monkeys, cranes, pavilions, and palaces. The mark which appears on this bowl, reading taige jiaqi ("good ware for tall pavilion"), have been identified as the mark of a private studio of the Jiajing period (Geng 1993: 397).