Lot 103. A rare 'Qingbai' box and cover, Song dynasty (960-1279). Diameter 5 1/4  in., 13.3 cm. Estimate 20,000 — 30,000 USD. Lot sold 25,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

of compressed globular form with lobed sides resembling the petals of a chrysanthemum flower, finely molded on the cover with a floral scroll, applied on the interior with three small barbed rim cups separated by three curved stems of lotus pods issuing from a central bud, applied overall with a transparent glaze pooling to a light turquoise blue in the recesses, the raised interior rim and base left unglazed revealing the smooth white body. 

Literature:  Tan Dan Jiong. Zhongguo taoci shi [History of Chinese Ceramics], Volume Two, Taipei, 1985, p. 477. 

Note: See a closely related box and cover also with three cups on the interior, of smaller size, unearthed at Guaxian, Shaowu City, and now in the Shaowu Museum, published in Zhongguo chutu ciqi quanji / Complete Collection of Ceramic Art Unearthed in China, Beijing, 2008, vol. 11, pl. 117. See also two related qingbai boxes with this form and with a plain interior, illustrated in Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Ceramics in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1964, nos. 552 and 554.

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