Lot 67. A glazed white stoneware phoenix-head ewer, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127). Estimate 20,000 — 30,000 USD. Lot sold 60,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

rising from a short straight solid foot, the globular body surmounted by a double-stranded handle and curved spout, the neck ending in a freely carved phoenix head with sharp pointed beak and incised details, below a funnel opening on top of the head, covered overall in a transparent glaze tinged with a grayish-green color stopping just above the foot. Height 7 5/8  in., 19.4 cm

Exhibited: Zhongguo taoci jingpin zhan [The Exhibition of Chinese Ceramics of Eight Dynasties], National Museum of History, Taipei, 1987, p. 29.

Note: The head of this ewer is particularly fine and elaborately modeled. The inspiration may derive from contemporary silver wares, see the excavated phoenix-head ewer published in Song Yun: Sichuan Yao Cang Wenwu Jicui [The Charm of Song: Cultural Artefacts from Hoards in Sichuan], Beijing, 2006, p. 145. 

See a similar phoenix-head ewer of slightly larger form and longer neck, published in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, vol. 3, 2006, no. 1402; and another two ewers with shorter necks, decorated bodies, and more simplified phoenix-heads also in the Meiyintang Collection, published in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, vol. 1, 1994, nos. 323 and 324, where the author notes that these wares were mainly exported to South-east Asia.  For related, undecorated phoenix-head ewers excavated in Indonesia and now in the Museum Pusat, Jakarta, see Oriental Ceramics. The World's Great Collections, Tokyo, vol. 3, 1982, nos. 67 and 68. 

Sotheby's. Song Tradition: Early Ceramics from the Yang De Tang Collection. New York, 17 march 2015, 11:00 AM