An Yixing brown clay 'gongju' teapot and cover


Qing DynastyThe reddish-purple clay mixed with duanni shards, potted in a compressed globular form rising from a lipped foot to a matching lipped mouth, with brass, hinged, overhead handle, the base incised gongju, the lid rim incised gaoyang, the surface polished overall to a high sheen.17cm (6 3/4in) wide (2).
|K.S. Lo believes extant examples of gongju type teapots indicate these pots were made between the early years of seventeenth century and the middle of the eighteenth. The highly polished surfaces and metal mounts were produced by specialised workshops in Bangkok, where the industry of polishing and mounting still survives but is confined to pots made in Thailand (K.S. Lo, The Stonewares of Yixing, from the Ming Period to the Present Day, Sotheby's Publications & Hong Kong University Press, London, New York, Hong Kong, 1998, pp.197-204).