Bottle vase

Knowledge of this piece has been obscured by an ignorance of Xixia ceramics, the study of which was not initiated until the late 1980s. Largely missing from early texts, activity at the kiln was only fragmentarily recorded during the sixteenth century. The outstanding feature of this piece, a wide unglazed band around the shoulder, distinguishes it from cizhou ware, and indeed, this feature has been identified as a treatment peculiar to Xixia jars (KG 1987.12: pl. 7; Ma 1988: pls. 12-3). Several jars from the lingwu site in Ningxia in northwestern China, of different shapes and glazed either in black or brown, were found with the same wide band. After glazing the entire body, a wide circle of glaze was wheel-thrown off of the shoulder. While influenced by northern Chinese ceramics, kilns of the Xixia produced wares suitable for the nomadic lifestyle.