Lot 28. A 'Jizhou'-type paper-cut resist-decorated conical bowl, Southern Song Dynasty. Diameter 5 3/4  in., 14.5 cm. Estimate 50,000 - 70,000 USD. Lot sold 197,000 USD. © Sotheby's

decorated on the interior with two phoenix with long trailing tails, interspersed with a butterfly and a floret, all reserved in rich dark brown against the densely variegated buff ground, the exterior applied with a 'tortoiseshell' glaze of dark purplish brown color mottled in mushroom stopping short of the narrow knife-paired foot, Japanese wood boxes, lacquer stand and lacquer box (22).

Provenance: Mayuyama & Co., Ltd., Tokyo, acquired between 1960-1969.

Exhibited: Chugoku kotoji to-so meito ten, Japan Ceramic Society, Tokyo, 1964, cat. no. 66.

Literature: Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Volume One, Mayuyama & Co., Ltd., Tokyo, 1976, p. 225, no. 680.

Note: This type of Chinese ceramics is known as 'Taihisan-tenmoku' in Japan—a particular type sought after by Japanese collectors. A similar example is now in the collection of the Kyoto National Museum, see the exhibition catalogue Song Ceramics, Tobu Museum (Tokyo), the Museum of Oriental Ceramics (Osaka) and the Hagi Uragami Museum (Hagi), 1999, p. 118, no. 80. The bowl has a Song lacquer stand (Amagasaki) and a lacquer fitted box that was probably made by the Daimyo family.