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GLOSSARY

"Heaped and piled"

Heaped and piled

Heaped and piled decoration of ewer of the Yongle period (1403-23). The tendency of early cobalt decoration to be so heavily applied that it breaks through the glaze and creates dark patches of pure cobalt. Blue-and-white ewers of this form, painted with three different designs, recovered from the Yongle stratum of the Ming imperial kiln sites were included in the exhibition Jingdezhen chutu Ming Xuande guanyao ciqi / Xuande Imperial Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1998, cat. nos. 57-9.

Feature found on porcelain with underglaze blue decoration where the surface of the glaze shows dark, violet/black spots because of high pigment concentration or impurities in the cobalt, primarily occurring during the 14-15th century. The effect is copied to perfection on modern fakes.

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