Bowl with Flaring Sides

The Bowl with Flaring Sides is a superb example of the white wares with transparent ivory white or straw-colored glazes produced at the Ding ware kilns in north China from the tenth to the early thirteenth centuries. Earlier examples are characterized by the graceful, freehand flower motifs that decorate them, and the best Ding wares were greatly favored as imperial ceramics in the Northern Song (960–1127). Fired right-side-up, the flaring Bowl remains unbanded and has a design of camellia blossoms on the interior, a rare motif in this type of ceramic.