AN OUTSTANDING RU KILN BRUSH WASHERDia:13.0cm,H:3.1cmOverwhelmingly beautiful, finely potted with shallow rounded sides rising from a wide flat base raised on a slightly splayed foot, fully enveloped in a luscious caesious coloured glaze, a tactile delight, suffused with a latent crackle now and then accented with darker veins of cracklure, the underside heightened with three delicate 'sesame-seed' spur marks.Ru guanyao, the Ru kilns' 'official ware', plays a role quite extraordinary in the history of China and her art. Hardly any other artefacts have elicited feelings as fervent as the small and deceptively modest Ru ceramics. Of outstanding rarity, historically connected to patriotic sentiments of a grand era, conceptually to philosophical ideals of life in tune with nature, and aesthetically to a sophisticated taste for artlessness and excellence, they have obtained an almost mythical aura.