Recent excavations confirm that this type of deeply carved stoneware with celadon glaze was made at the Yao-chou kilns in Shansi province. Freely and boldly carved around the sides with a large peony flower in full bloom, the globular vessel has been covered with a thin, pale green celadon, characteristic of this rare group of tenth and early eleventh century ceramics. The ewer would have originally had a lid that capped its tall, cylindrical neck. Hard, grayish-bodied stonewares, commonly called northern celadon, are usually decorated with incised, moulded or carved designs under a fairly homogenous family of translucent green-olive green glazes. Standing near the beginning of the Northern Sung continuum (960-1127), this ewer displays the thin pale-green glaze of that era.