A very rare carved 'Ding' 'lotus' jar, Song dynasty. Estimate 1,000,000 — 1,500,000 HKD  (120,007 - 180,010 EUR). Photo Sotheby's.

finely potted with rounded sides rising from a recessed base to a high shoulder and short tapered rim, elegantly incised in swift strokes around the body with two stylised lotus rising from scrolled leaves, applied overall save for the rim and foot with a pale ivory glaze, stopping above the knife-pared footring revealing a smooth white ware, the glaze pooling to a greenish colour on the base and around the neck, set with a later metal cover in the form of a veined lotus pad - 9.2 by 11.2 cm., 3 5/8  by 4 3/8  in.

Property from a private East Asian collection

Notes: Ding vessels of this form are extremely rare and the present piece is exceptional for its elegant shape, fine glaze and naturalistic carving. See a jar of related rounded body with a thin foot, the sides engraved in both single and double outlines with a lotus scroll design, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Museum’s Special Exhibition of Ting Ware White Porcelain, Taipei, 1987, cat. no. 14; another also with a foot, in the Yuegutang collection, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Yuegutang. A Collection of Chinese Ceramics in Berlin, Berlin, 2000, pl. 149; and a third plain example with a Ding lotus leaf cover, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, published in Rose Kerr, Song Dynasty Ceramics, London, 2000, pl. 41.

A Ding jar of closely related form but decorated with a design of undulating lines suggesting overlapping lotus petals carved through the iron-brown slip on the body, was included in the exhibition White Porcelain of Ding Yao, Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo, 1983, cat. no. 148.

Compare also two carved Ding jars sold at Christie’s New York, one from the collection of Stephen Junkunc III, 21st September 1995, lot 168, and the other, 2nd June 1994, lot 268.

Sotheby's. Chinese Art. Hong Kong, 01 Jun 2015, 03:15 PM