Lot 70. A fine Qingbai cup, Northern Song dynasty. Estimate 20,000 — 30,000 GBP. Lot sold 25,000 GBP.  Photo: Sotheby’s

delicately potted of upright rounded form, with three raised ribs below the tapering foot, rising to a tapering rim, covered in a consistent pale blue-tinged glaze; 7.3cm., 2 7/8in.

PROVENANCE: Collection of Francisco Capelo.

LITTERATURE: Francisco Capelo et. al., Forms of Pleasure. Chinese Ceramics from Burial to Daily Life, London, 2009, pl. 60.

Notes: This exquisite form appears to be rare although a very similar vessel, both in form and size, is illustrated in Heaven and Earth Seen Within. Song Ceramics from the Robert Barron Collection, New Orleans, 2000, p. 116, pl. 43, where it is described as a water pot and attributed to the manufacture of the kilns at Fanchang county in Anhui province. It is also noted,ibid., p. 116, that excavations at the Fanchang kiln site and tomb excavations at Anhui have uncovered virtually identical water pots, and further two examples were discovered, along with forty other Qingbai porcelains, in a tomb datable to 1087 in Susong county, Anhui province. Another similar pot is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, published in Stacey Pierson (ed.,), Qingbai Wares: Chinese Porcelains of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, London, 2002, pl. 26, and two further examples sold in our New York rooms, 21/22nd September 2005, lot 55, and 23rdMarch 2004, lot 621.

The present pot is also comparable to a small finely potted zhadou, from the Meiyintang collection, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume Three (II), London, 2006, pl. 1587, particularly the lower lobe of the vessel.

Sotheby’s. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Londres | 05 nov. 2014, 10:00 AM