How to Read a Yixing Teapot
Look beyond the word “purple” to clay, joins, surface and authorship in the pottery city of Yixing.
Yixing
A distinct pottery city within Wuxi, where zisha turns a small vessel into a complex work of design.
Yixing deserves its own place in a Wuxi exploration. Its pottery tradition is concentrated around Dingshu and extends into collections far beyond China. Begin with the clay itself, then study how body, lid, handle and spout work together before looking for a maker’s name.
Start reading here
Photo credits and rights
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A Yixing clay teapot on display at Wuxi Museum, photographed in April 2013.猫猫的日记本 · CC BY-SA 3.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized and converted to WebP.