Jizhou leaf tea bowl

[Amateur]

Hello, 

Am not sure if I can send image of leaf bowl in question. 

The Chinese were able to produce tea bowls with the image of a leaf on the bowl.  As I understand it the leaf was covered with a clear glaze and then put on the tenmoku glazed bowl and then high  fired.  The result was an image of the leaf on the bowl.  I tried this alleged method but the result was disappointing.  Does anyone have an idea as to how this was done? 

Thanks,

Anthony 

[PeterH]

One line of thought

The quest for the illusive leaf bowl: John Britt describes his search for an ancient technique.
https://tinyurl.com/7bfmn6fc
... with the intriguing content
Then, while on Facebook, a Japanese woman named Mia Ishiguro (no relation to Munemaro) noticed that I was researching the leaf bowl and having trouble, so she sent me the symbols for 'leaf bowl' in Japanese. ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) I copied and pasted these symbols into Google and found a lot of information, unfortunately written in Japanese, which I cannot read but, being a visual learner, I decided to click 'Images' and voila--thousands of images of the leaf bowl instantly appeared. I started to click the links and many connected to museums and historic books, while others led to blogs of people who, like me, wanted to figure it out. Several others led to newspaper articles allegedly describing the technique. I was excited, saved these articles and printed them out. Although I could not read them, I could deduce what was being done by the pictures. Today Google will translate text for you but not images and some of these were photos of newspaper articles. Nevertheless, this gave me some excellent techniques to try.

Google translate gave leaf-bowl => リーフボウル
Which sadly gives lots of images of leaf-shaped bowls!

Printer friendly version at https://www.thefreelibrary.com/_/print/PrintArticle.aspx?id=372884215

The article appeared in print (no idea about the Japanese symbol)

• Ceramics Technical
• ISSN:1324-4175
• Issue:38
• Page Range:84-88
• First Page:84
• Last Page:88

John also sold an ebook containing this and other articles, don't know if it's still available.
Not here, but some photos https://tinyurl.com/mvmnu3xf

 

Guarded praise from  J Baymore ...

PS An historic example at https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1973-0726-279

PS

Google translate into Chinese (traditional)  gave leaf bowl => 葉碗

A google search for images then gave a few hits, the first of which was https://m.fei123.com/10000/4218.shtml

Edited May 18, 2022 by PeterH

[PeterH]

No process info.
Young Chinese girls revive, innovate 1,200-year-old porcelain leaf cup making techniques
http://en.people.cn/n3/2021/0113/c90000-9808774.html

[PeterH]

木の葉天目茶碗  (Konoha Tenmoku bowl)
https://www.teaforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=1863
http://www.tokorozawaclub.com/HP/okachan/konohatenmokutyawan.htm

Seems to be some how-to pages (scroll past the first tiny ones)

Sample pix

I now appreciate John Britt's comment about removing them with a magnet better.

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by PeterH

[PeterH]

222 page thesis
TRANSFORMATION OF SIX LEAVES GLAZE TO CONTEMPORARY CERAMIC BASES ON THE TAOISM CHARACTERISTICS
https://tinyurl.com/4a48pyky

In the research process, 768 glaze recipes have been tried. A total of more than 600 kilns have been fired, and more than 20,000 pieces of products have been fired. In the early stages there were a high probability of failures. However,
the rate of finished products finally increased from 2% to 80%

[PeterH]

An interesting spin-off?

I welcome others interpretation of this paper (pity it doesn't have a pictures)
 Research on the New Woodleaf Glaze in Celadon
https://www.scitepress.org/Papers/2019/85615/85615.pdf

The image on a good leaf bowl is notable both for its fidelity and its colour.

https://www.yuyinghuang.com/shop/mulberry-leaf-tenmoku-teabowl

This paper thinks of the leaf as a way of applying an over-glaze image to the pot. It starts by analysing the mulberry leaf ash as it is heated, and comes up with a glaze formula:

Any thoughts on the colouring mechanism? And is it a property of the overglaze alone, or a reaction with the base-glaze?

It then considers the use of this overglaze which it uses with a celedon base-glaze.

Combine with celadon's mud glaze to make no less than 6 sets of test pieces, (I'm not sure if it is applied it as an overglaze, or mixed it with the celedon.)

 ... and then looks at the effect of firing temperature. Pity there is no pictures.

PS It would be interesting to know the analysis of the ash of other leaves traditionally used for leaf bowls.

Edited May 21, 2022 by PeterH

[Callie Beller Diesel]

I don’t think the artist who made the pot in your supplied image is applying overglaze: I think they’re just putting a leaf on a glaze that’s got the right chemistry to be inclined to turn that gold colour when the ash from the leaf melts into the right spot. Some of the colour response is going to come from the change in the fluxes in that really localized area, and some of it would come from the additional iron, chrome and manganese. And phosphorous. 

Joe at Old Forge Creations did this blog post last September about some chemistry explorations he did with a black tenmoku recipe that formed yellow crystals. He was fine tuning the rate of iron crystals by altering the amount of magnesium and calcium. There’s more, but that’s the Cole’s notes version if you don’t want to read the blog. If you look at the image in Peter’s reply just above mine here, you can see that there are tiny yellow specks in the glaze, meaning that one is probably already susceptible to turning that particular gold colour. Adjusting the localized chemistry with ash from a botanical that contains magnesium is enough to push the glaze in the right direction. Could happen in either oxidation or reduction I would think. 

[PeterH]

43 minutes ago, Callie Beller Diesel said:

I don’t think the artist who made the pot in your supplied image is applying overglaze: I think they’re just putting a leaf on a glaze that’s got the right chemistry to be inclined to turn that gold colour when the ash from the leaf melts into the right spot.

Yes, I intended the picture as an example of the effects of an applied leaf, and a mulberry leaf in particular.

I was suggesting that the paper I was discussing seemed to  start by looking at the traditional leaf-based way of obtaining an image and then thought: hey what if you used leaf-ash (or its chemical equivalent) as a "local surface additive". And the paper expands on the idea (I thought overglaze was less of a mouthful than "local surface additive").

1 hour ago, Callie Beller Diesel said:

Some of the colour response is going to come from the change in the fluxes in that really localized area, and some of it would come from the additional iron, chrome and manganese. And phosphorous. 

Joe at Old Forge Creations did this blog post last September about some chemistry explorations he did with a black tenmoku recipe that formed yellow crystals. ...

Thanks for the thoughtful contribution and very interesting reference on colouring mechanisms.

PS I find it interesting that the paper applied to technique to Celedons. Which I suspect would be less likely to be "chromatically  influenced" by things like local flux changes than Tenmokos.

[Callie Beller Diesel]

2 hours ago, PeterH said:

Which I suspect would be less likely to be "chromatically  influenced"

Not at all! Cone 10 reduction celadons are like the Little Prince’s Rose, or the Princess and the Pea: sensitive creatures that notice minute changes. Switch one feldspar out for another, or use ball clay instead of kaolin, and you’ll wind up with a noticeably different shade, even if it stays within the blue/green colour family. Thickness differences are very noticeable, and if applied wrong, they’ll show every drip mark or scratch. On the plus side, they highlight carved textures quite beautifully.  Even a simple recipe like Leach 4321 base will vary if you switch a material, or if it gets hit with ash in a wood kiln. Put that same base over a white stoneware vs a grolleg porcelain and the stoneware will be a Koryo dynasty green, but the porcelain will give you something far more robin’s egg blue.

I haven’t gone as in-depth into tenmoku glazes so I can’t enumerate the exact differences between them, but celadons can be very colour responsive. They’re  just subtle changes within a specific chromatic range. 

 

[PeterH]

On 5/22/2022 at 1:37 AM, Callie Beller Diesel said:

I haven’t gone as in-depth into tenmoku glazes so I can’t enumerate the exact differences between them, but celadons can be very colour responsive. They’re  just subtle changes within a specific chromatic range. 

Sorry, I meant there was unlikely to be a major flux-based "chromatic influence" for Celedons towards the golden metallic effect the paper was seeking.

In this project, a kind of glaze that resembles metal glaze with golden color, simple color and no obvious luster

[Pyewackette]

John Britt has the book on his website:

The Quest for the Elusive Leaf Bowl and other Selected Articles

I just realized the title is actually using "Illusive" but I'm pretty sure he meant Elusive, as in hard to track down rather than "illusory" or false.

I also just learned that John Britt is from my neck of the woods (Ohio, Daytonish).  I haven't lived there since the late 80s, but still.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Pyewackette

[jayjay]

On 5/18/2022 at 8:09 AM, PeterH said:

222 page thesis
TRANSFORMATION OF SIX LEAVES GLAZE TO CONTEMPORARY CERAMIC BASES ON THE TAOISM CHARACTERISTICS
https://tinyurl.com/4a48pyky

In the research process, 768 glaze recipes have been tried. A total of more than 600 kilns have been fired, and more than 20,000 pieces of products have been fired. In the early stages there were a high probability of failures. However,
the rate of finished products finally increased from 2% to 80%

Does anyone have a copy of this thesis.  It seems the link is dead. 

[PeterH]

2 hours ago, jayjay said:

Does anyone have a copy of this thesis.  It seems the link is dead. 

Hang on ... it's still out there. Usable link below

A google for TRANSFORMATION_OF_SIX_LEAVES_GLAZE_TO_CONTEMPORARY_CERAMIC_BASES_ON_THE_TAOISM_CHARACTERISTICS filetype:pdf

gets me to an Resource not found error page at
http://www.sure.su.ac.th/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/20993/DR_FENG_Shanxin.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Clicking on Go to SURE home  get me to the sites home page at http://www.sure.su.ac.th/xmlui/

From there a search for TRANSFORMATION OF SIX LEAVES GLAZE gets me to the pdf at
http://www.sure.su.ac.th/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/24111/DR_FENG_Shanxin.pdf?sequence=-1&isAllowed=y

I give the search details as it's possible that you may find other items on the site of interest.

PS ... and an alternative URL, possibly to the same instance of the file :
http://ithesis-ir.su.ac.th/dspace/bitstream/123456789/2977/1/60155902.pdf
 

Edited August 14, 2022 by PeterH

[PeterH]

Perhaps of mild interest, despite cryptic translation.

https://patents.google.com/patent/CN1055278C/en

Method for making colour glaze natural leaf figure ceramic product

Abstract

The present invention discloses a method for making color glaze natural leaf pattern ceramics. Natural leaves or plant leaves are stuck to a blank coated with base glaze after particularly treated, and a layer of surface glaze is coated on the blank. Then, the blank is put in a kiln to be burned to obtain a ceramic finished product. The present invention uses ceramics as a carrier, and natural leaf patterns are burned on the ceramics. The leaf patterns are clear, natural and vivid and have beauty sense and very high appreciation and collection value. The present invention has no particular requirements for conditions of the base glaze, the blank, combusting atmospheres, etc. and has the advantages of simple preparation process and easy operation.

 

 

 

[Jmvelezz]

Can some one please send me the articule of the TRANSFORMATION OF SIX LEAVES GLAZE TO CONTEMPORARY CERAMIC BASES ON THE TAOISM_CHARACTERISTICS?

the page send error

jmvelezz@unal.edu.co

 

thank you

[PeterH]

1 hour ago, Jmvelezz said:

Can some one please send me the articule of the TRANSFORMATION OF SIX LEAVES GLAZE TO CONTEMPORARY CERAMIC BASES ON THE TAOISM_CHARACTERISTICS?

the page send error

jmvelezz@unal.edu.co

 

thank you

I would keep trying http://ithesis-ir.su.ac.th/dspace/bitstream/123456789/2977/1/60155902.pdf from time to time.

It seems a fairly serious "internal  error" as it won't let me go to the home page or notify the administrator. With luck this might mean that they will fix it soon-ish (a few days?).

 

 

[PeterH]

@Jmvelezz Finally ...

Transformation of Six Leaves Glaze to Contemporary Ceramic Bases on the Taoism Characteristics
http://ithesis-ir.su.ac.th/dspace/handle/123456789/2977
... click on  60155902.pdf near the bottom of the page.

... which seems to be link to  http://ithesis-ir.su.ac.th/dspace/bitstream/123456789/2977/1/60155902.pdf
... which looks like the same link that doesn't work when you use it directly!

I've not found any English-language page at the university that would let me report the problems to the universities IT department. I suspect that they have got their permissions in a twist.

PS You may want to remove the watermark before printing. How to do it depends on your system. Start with a google for something like print pdf without watermark. Don't have the file any more, but think I uncompressed the pdf file then edited it directly (on Linux possibly using pdftk & vi).

Edited August 21, 2023 by PeterH
added comment on removing watermark