Lot 3122. A Longquan celadon-glazed 'Cong' vase, Song Dynasty (960-1279). Estimation 400,000-600,000 HKD (39,143 — 58,715 EUR). Lot sold 524,000 HKD (51,278 EUR). Photo Sotheby's

modelled after the archaic jade cong, the body of attenuated square section supported on a short waisted footring, rising to a flat shoulder and a thick circular neck, each corner carved with eight raised horizontal bands, each within a raised rectangular panel, covered overall with a thick lustrous celadon glaze: 26 cm., 10 1/8 in.  

PROVENANCE: An old Japanese collection.

NOTE: Celadon vases of this form imitate archaic ritual jade objects in shape and colour and represent one of the most characteristic types of Song ceramics. They derive from jade cong, which are not shaped as containers but as open tubes, and are known particularly from the Neolithic Liangzhu culture. A fine example from the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, was included in the exhibition Gems of Liangzhi Culture, Hong Kong Museum of History, Hong Kong, 1992, cat. no. 57.

Several cong vases can be seen in famous collections throughout the world; one in the Shanghai Museum is illustrated in Longquan ciqi, Beijing, 1966, pl. 15; one is published in the Illustrated Catalogue of Sung Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum. Lung-ch'uan Ware, Ko Ware and Other Wares, Kyoto, 1974, pls 8 and 9; another from the Eumorfopoulus collection and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is included in John Ayers, Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1980, pl. 124; and a fourth example from the Oppenheim collection and now in the British Museum, London, is published in Jessica Rawson (ed.), The British Museum Book of Chinese Art, London, 1992, pl. 8 (left). 

Compare also a vase of this type, from the Toguri collection, sold in our London rooms, 9th June 2004, lot 53; and another from the Baron Hatvany collection, included in the exhibition Song Ceramics, Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, Singapore, 1983, cat. no. 36, and sold in these rooms, 5th November 1996, lot 605

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. Hong Kong | 04 avr. 2012