Handmade Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot – Red Jiangponi Clay, 220ml

This is a 220 ml sculptural form teapot in Red Jiangponi Clay, fully handmade, made in Dingshu, Yixing. Its Chinese name is 扭转乾坤·犀牛.

The clay. The warmer end of the jiangponi seam, with more red ore in the mix. Rounder and sweeter, with jiangponi's characteristic quick patina.

The form. The subject here is rhinoceros — in Chinese decorative vocabulary, from the idiom about turning the situation around. Naturalistic work — huaqi — takes its subject from the living world: gourds, pine, bamboo, lotus, fruit, animals. It descends directly from Gongchun's tree-burl pot, the founding object of the craft. Each piece is modelled and carved rather than turned, so no two come out the same.

How it was made. Built entirely by hand — the wall is beaten out from a slab and joined without a mould. Inside the body you can still read the tool marks and the joint line, which is how the method is verified.

Size and tea. 220 ml is a sharing pot. It suits a table of four or more, or a long single steep of something you want to drink slowly over an afternoon. Best suited to black tea, ripe pu-erh and roasted oolong.

This pot. Catalogue no. 254, 220 ml, US$450. Photographed individually — the images show the pot you receive.

Made by an independent Dingshu potter working outside the titled-master system. We do not attach a name we cannot verify.

New to zisha? Read how to season a Yixing teapot before first use.

Similar teapots

• Handmade Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Red Jiangponi Clay, 135 ml, $500
• Handmade Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Jiangponi Clay, 180 ml, $450
• Handmade Pumpkin Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Jiangponi Clay, 160 ml, $450

Or browse every Red Jiangponi pot · the full Yixing catalogue.