This lovely little piece is a water-dropper in the shape of a lotus-bud. It is only 5,5 cm across, and is made of a brown burned clay. It is covered with a blueish grey Celadon glaze. The two repairs are filled in with a Kintsugi style repair.

The dating of this pieces is likely to be Song dynasty, maybe a bit later. A similar piece was described by Sotheby’s as Song dynasty ‘Longquan’ ware. With these intriguing quotation marks.

Water-droppers are a scolar-table item, and used to drop water onto an ink-stone where a solid block of ink was rubbed to produce fluid ink.