1200s Tenmoku Tea Bowl Ceramic Cup Antique China Song Yuan Temmoku Shipwreck

[smak]

Hi All,

What do you think of this? Was told it was shipwreck (Donghai Baijiao).

Also can we start a adiscussion about Tenmoku? Why are they desirable? What makes them special? I have seen them go for a lot of money, but what makes them special? I simply do not know anything about them!

[smak]

more

[smak]

also any details on this shipwreck (Donghai Baijiao)?

[peterp]

First three things.
For one, I recommend looking at shipwrecks lifted in SE Asia. Donghai Baijiao? Never heard of this, but please be careful. There are many fake Tenmoku antiques in the open market. Usually shipwreck archaeology lifts artifacts and puts them in museums; if some are sold this happens via auctions or other legitimate channels, to finance the archaeological work.

Tenmoku bowls are called that way because they were brought back to Japan by monks who went to China for study. They are named after Tianmu (Chinese reading) mountain. They may still be sought after. The name Tenmoku is used for various types of tea bowls, from different kilns.


Jian kiln aka Jianyang kiln bowls and Jizhou kiln bowls can be considered the most important ones for collecting, but there were lots of other (peripheral) kilns who also made black bowls, The bowls of those kilns often have less collecting value.
From the look of it yours is likely one of the latter. Value dropped considerably after shipwrecks with huge quantities of these were lifted and auctioned.

I would recommend to search for Jian kiln Hare Fur's bowls, Jizhou tea bowls, etc. for information and examples of these. They are/were more sought after.