A black-glazed russet-splashed vase, Jin dynasty. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

the body of elegant pear shape rising from a short spreading foot to a tall flaring neck with a rolled rim, covered overall with a rich lustrous brown-black glaze stopping just above the base, freely painted in russet with three large stylized birds. Height 11 7/16  in., 29 cm

Exhibition: Zhongguo taoci jingpin zhan [The Exhibition of Chinese Ceramics of Eight Dynasties], National Museum of History, Taipei, 1987, p. 40.

Notes: See a related pear-shaped vase in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, published in Robert D. Mowry,Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers. Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics, 400-1400, Cambridge, 1995, no 52, where the author suggests that these bottles with this type of decoration only appeared in the Jin period, and therefore a Northern Song date is unlikely for dark-glazed bottles with painted decoration. 

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