What's the purpose of a ringed lid on a Yixing pot?

[mbanu]

So what is the purpose of a ringed lid compared to a standard button lid? Or if it has no purpose other than custom, what's the origin of the custom?

By ringed lid, I mean a teapot that has a top like this:



Anyone have any info?

[OCTO]

So what is the purpose of a ringed lid compared to a standard button lid? Or if it has no purpose other than custom, what's the origin of the custom?

By ringed lid, I mean a teapot that has a top like this:



Anyone have any info?

To my limited knowledge, it’s purely a design inspired by something which I can‘t pin point at the moment. What’s the overall design of the pot??

[Bok]

So what is the purpose of a ringed lid compared to a standard button lid? Or if it has no purpose other than custom, what's the origin of the custom?

By ringed lid, I mean a teapot that has a top like this:



Anyone have any info?

I think it’s safe to assume that many decorative elements on teapots are just that, decoration.

Or what’s the purpose of a teapot shaped as a tree trunk?

[mbanu]

I suppose I thought it had a purpose or custom because it is used on a few different shapes. I saw it first in a book by Pan Chunfang on notable Yixing potters. A gourd-shaped teapot with a ringed lid was made by a famous early potter Chen Mansheng (maybe the inventor of the style?). It looked sort of like this:



(The lid was from a copy of the gourd style by a modern potter, Zhu Huan, that was part of a pot a vendor sold.)

However, in the same book there was another potter, Bao Zhiqiang, using it on a different teapot shape, so it did not seem to be exclusive to the gourd shape. Not the same pot, but another by Bao Zhiqiang that has a ringed lid:



And it seems to show up on other shapes too:



So I thought maybe it had a purpose I did not know about. You are right though, a lot of things are often just style choices.

[pedant]

i don't know the history, but i think the captive ring is just for style. of course it reminds me of a metal chain, but people have been making captive elements (including chain links) in ivory carvings, wood carvings, ceramics, etc for a long time. i have one of those dragon pots where the dragon has a captive tongue.