Handled Han Vase in Chinese Blue, 11.5"

A glaze that was lost for 60 years

The shape is two thousand years old. Broad through the shoulder, tapering to a small foot, opening into a flared trumpet neck with two small lugs where the handles would have been. It comes from Han dynasty hu jars. The pre-War Jugtown potters worked from early Chinese forms, and it entered the Owen family's catalog from there.

The glaze is copper, fired to 2,250 degrees, where it reacts to the smoke and flame of the kiln. Chinese Blue was first developed at Jugtown Pottery in the 1930s. After Jacques Busbee died, his wife Juliana asked that it no longer be made, and the recipe was lost. It stayed with Ben Owen Sr., who spent years trying to get back to it and arrived at a recipe of his own. That version passed down through the family, and Ben Owen III still works in his.

Two shallow lines circle the shoulder, cut into the wet clay on the wheel. They are the only decoration on the piece, and the glaze finds them — thinning over the ridges, pooling dark in the grooves. The mouth does something similar: red at the outer rim, a pale crust along the lip, clean turquoise dropping away inside.

No two pieces develop the same way. The photographs on this page are the vase that will arrive. Hand-signed by Ben Owen III, 2026.

7.5"w x 11.25"h.

See all five pieces in this release →