Idle melon yixing clay woodfired teapot # 94861The exact designation "" is not a widely standardized historical term, so the form is best understood as a mellow, leisure inspired variant of the melon gourd teapot family rather than a single canonical model. General historical context: melon and gourd shaped teapots have a long place in Chinese ceramic and zisha (Yixing) teapot traditions dating back to the late Ming and Qing periods. Artisans modeled vessels on fruits and vegetables both for