Ember: Jun Ware Rose-Purple Tea Washer
Ember: Jun Ware Rose-Purple Tea Washer
Ember
Jun Ware Rose-Purple Tea Washer
One color enters the kiln; ten thousand emerge. Jun ware is the most unpredictable of all Chinese porcelain — a copper-red glaze that, in the heat of the kiln, breaks into lakes of lavender, rivers of crimson, and skies of deep blue. No two pieces are alike because no two firings are alike. This tea washer holds the fire itself: a shallow basin of rose-purple glaze, made for rinsing cups and discarding the first infusion.
The Story
The Kiln's Secret
The potters of Junzhou did not know why their glaze changed color. They applied a single glaze — a blue ground with traces of copper — and placed the pieces in the kiln. What came out was never what went in. Sometimes the copper bloomed into rose. Sometimes it sank into purple. Sometimes it split, leaving blue sky beneath a purple cloud. They called it yaobian — "kiln transformation" — and accepted that the kiln, not the potter, decides the final color.
The rose-purple tea washer is the classic Jun form: wide, shallow, with a thick lip and a low foot. It is meant to sit at the center of the tea table, holding the rinse water, catching the discarded first brew. In use, it is functional. At rest, it is a small fire — a bowl of embers captured in glaze, still warm from a kiln that may have cooled a thousand years ago.
Detail
Close Examination
In Context
The Art of Use
Specification
Craft & Material
Objects made to be held, used, and passed on.
Quiet luxury, built to last.