Double Chicken-Headed Ewer

581-618 C.E.

Especially during the ninth to eleventh centuries, Chinese connoisseurs prized high-fired green-glazed ceramics and compared their exquisite gray-green glazes to precious jade. Green-glazed ware, know generally as Yue ware but often called "celadon" in the West, was manufactured both for daily use and for burial. The Chicken-Headed Ewer was most likely produced as a burial good, and excavations have revealed comparable early examples in tombs from the fourth century to the seventh. The two spouts on the remarkable, tall Chicken-Headed Ewer are not functional, further identifying it as a burial object.