A russet-painted black-glazed jar, Jin dynasty (1115-1234). © Christie's Image 2003

The high shoulder deftly painted in iron-oxide with three birds in flight against the blackish-toned dark brown glaze that ends in a neat line on the foot and continues over the mouth rim to cover most of the interior except for a broad ring in the bottom, the interior of the foot and base also glazed - 10¾in. (27.3cm.) diam., box. Lot 252. Estimate $4,000 - $6,000. Price Realized $4,183 

Notes: Compare a jar of similar design and form illustrated by J. Ayers, Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1980, col. pl. 26. Another jar of this design, from the collection of Walter Hochstadter, was included in a 1952 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and illustrated by H. Trubner in the catalogue, Chinese Ceramics from the Prehistoric Period through Ch'ien Lung, Los Angeles, p. 86, no. 205. See, also, a jar of this type, decorated with three stylized birds rendered in iron-rust, but reserved against a 'teadust' glaze, from the collection of R. M. Ferris IV, and now in the collection of the Harvard University Art Museums, illustrated by R. Mowry, Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, 1996, p. 164, no. 54. 

CHRISTIE'S. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 18 September 2003, New York, Rockefeller Plaza