Handmade Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot – Red Jiangponi Clay, 150ml

This is a 150 ml sculptural form teapot in Red Jiangponi Clay, fully handmade, made in Dingshu, Yixing. Its Chinese name is 瑞兽.

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 auspicious beast — in Chinese decorative vocabulary, a guardian creature from the Chinese bestiary. 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. 150 ml serves two to three people from a single fill, which makes it the most generally useful size on a tea table. Best suited to black tea, ripe pu-erh and roasted oolong.

This pot. Catalogue no. 247, 150 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 — Jiangponi Clay, 150 ml, $550
• Handmade Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Jiangponi Clay, 180 ml, $450
• Handmade Sculptural Form Yixing Zisha Teapot — Jiangponi Clay, 150 ml, $350

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