A carved 'Ding' 'Daylily' basin, Northern Song - Jin dynasty.  Estimate 300,000 — 400,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

with deep rounded sides rising to a lipped rim, all supported on a slightly recessed base and low foot, the interior neatly carved in the center with a single daylily issuing from a leafy stem, the white body covered overall with a tactile ivory-tinged glaze, the rim bound with metal, Japanese wood box. Diameter 8 1/4  in., 21 cm

Notes: The kiln site identified with Ding ware is located at Quyang county, Hebei province. This was an area formerly known as ‘Dingzhou’ prefecture in the Song dynasty. Ding production consisted mostly of small utilitarian wares such as dishes and bowls, initially left primarily undecorated in the 10th and early 11th centuries. From the late 11th century and early 12th century the wares are increasingly incised and carved and later through the thirteenth century mold-impressed and densely patterned. Rose Kerr writing on the collection of Song ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, remarks that the ‘fact that Ding ware was an official ware made one feature of its decoration especially pronounced. This was its tendency to mimic other, more precious materials such as gold and silver, huge quantities of which were stored in palace treasures’. For further discussion on this topic see Rose Kerr, Song Ceramics, London, 1982, p. 102. The steep walls and stepped rim on the present example certainly seem to reference a metal prototype. However, the freely incised decoration on the ceramic imbues the surface with a painterly immediacy that distinguishes itself from chased metalwork.

For a bowl of similar form and size with incised floral decoration see National Palace Museum, Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Ting Ware White Porcelain, Taipei, 1987, no. 28. A slightly smaller bowl of similar deep form and lipped rim was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 24th November 2014, lot 1033 and two others from the collection of Richard Bryant Hobart were sold in our London rooms, 23rd May 1969, lots 80 and 81 (which is of a similar diameter to the present piece).

Sotheby's. Chinese Art through the Eye of Sakamoto Gor – Ceramics, New York, 17 mars 2015, 10:00 AM