Black and brown were considered the best colours for enhancing the appearance of tea that had been whisked into a white foam. In his twenty-chapter treatise on tea, the Huizong emperor (1100-1126) commented: ‘the desirable colour of a tea bowl is bluish black and the best examples display clearly streaked hairs.’

Before being purchased by Robert Mill (College, 1946-51), this bowl belonged to Cyril Medcalf, author of Introduction to Chinese Pottery and Porcelain (1955), and before that to Dr Isaac Newton, a medical officer in Hong Kong from 1926 to 1951.

Provenance: Dr Isaac Newton (c.1897-c.1982); Cyril Medcalf (1909-57); Bluett & Sons, London 1954, where purchased by Robert Mill (1933-2020) and bequeathed by him to Winchester College, 2020