A superb Cizhou 'Oil spot' glazed bowl, Northern Song-Jin Dynasty, 11th-12th century. Estimate  700,000 — 1,000,000 HKD. Lot sold 2,120,000 HKD. Photo courtesy Sotheby's

delicately potted with a fine incurved rim, supported on a low foot ring, covered with a shiny black-brown glaze painted with lustrous metallic purplish 'oil-spots', stopping short of the foot to leave an unglazed area covered with brown-black slip; 8.5 cm., 3 3/8  in.

Provenance: Eskenazi Ltd., London.

Note: Of superb shape and outstanding finish, this is an exceptional example of a Cizhou 'oil-spot' bowl, where the metallic purplish oil-spots radiate evenly throughout the interior and around the sides. For others of comparable quality, see a pair of similar black-glazed 'oil-spot' bowls illustrated in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva, 1999, vol. 1, nos. 29 and 30. Compare also a pair in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, included in the exhibitionArt Museums, Cambridge, Massachussets, 1995-96, cat. no. 43 a and b; a single bowl with strikingly identical small 'oil spot' bowls from the Ryoko-in Temple, Kyoto, illustrated in Chugoku no toji: Tenmoku, Tokyo, 1999, pl. 24; and a single bowl from the collection of Hirota Matsushige, published in the Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum: Chinese Ceramics I, Tokyo, 1988, no. 610.

Sotheby's. Contemporary Literati: Curiosity, Hong Kong, 05 avr. 2015