Lot 85. A large sky-blue 'Jun' bowl, Northern Song-Jin dynasty (960-1234). Diameter 8 3/4  in., 22.2 cm. Estimate 120,000 — 150,000 USD. Lot sold 225,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

superbly potted rising from a short straight foot to deep rounded sides, applied overall with a rich glaze of milky lavender blue suffused with a pale crackle and thinning to mushroom at the rim, the glaze stopping irregularly just short of the foot. 

Literature: Chugoku meito ten: Chugoku toji 2000-nen no seika [Exhibition of Chinese Pottery: Two Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramics], Tokyo, 1992, no. 42. 

Note: Jun bowl of related form and size discovered in 1963 at Huangzhuang, Henan province and now in the Henan Provincial Museum, is published in Zhongguo taoci quanji [Complete series on Chinese Ceramics], Shanghai, 1999-2000, vol. 7, pl. 186.  See two other related bowls in the Meiyintang Collection, one illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, vol. 1, 1994, no. 387, and the other in, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, vol. 3, 2006, no. 1461.

Jun ware is included as one of the ‘Five Classic Wares’ (wu da yao) of the Song dynasty, and derives its name from the kiln near Juntai terrace within the north gate of the Yuzhou prefecture in Henan province, where they were produced from the end of the Northern Song period (960-1127) to the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Much admired for the beauty of its glaze which varies from a thick opaque sky blue to brilliant mauves, lavenders and purple, it was discovered in the 1970s that the blue tone was not created by pigments but was actually an optical effect. During firing the glaze would separate into light-refracting droplets of glass and when light passed through the blue spectrum of light was reflected to achieve its bluish hue.

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