Lot 1. A green-glazed pottery jar, Tang dynasty. Estimate 12,000 — 15,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's

the broad-shouldered body rising from a short spreading foot to a waisted short neck with everted rolled rim, covered overall in an emerald-green glaze, applied in layers and pooling to dark spinach-green tones, the glaze extending over the rim and foot, stopping unevenly on the base to reveal the pinkish-buff body, the interior applied with a transparent yellow-tinged glaze, with spur marks to the rim, Japanese wood box (3) - Height 6 1/4  in., 16.1 cm

Provenance: Collection of Richard Edmund Relfe Luff (1887-1969).
The R.E.R. Luff Will Trust. 
Sotheby's London, 26th June 1973, lot 8.

Exhibited: Wares of the T'ang Dynasty, Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1949, cat. no. 169.
Toyo Kobijyutsu ten [Oriental Antiquities Exhibition], Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi, Tokyo, 1974, cat. no. 6. 
Yoroppa Hizou Koimari Kakiemon Kotoji ten [Treasured in Europe - Exhibition of Ancient Ceramics of Old Imari and Kakiemon], Nihonbashi Takashimaya, Tokyo, 1975, cat. no. 10.

Notes: Compare a similar jar illustrated in Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt and Jean-Claude Moreau-Gobart, Chinese Art, Jade, Sculpture, Ceramics, New York, 1980, pl. 135, formerly in the collection of the British Rail Pension Fund and subsequently sold at Sotheby's London 12th December 1989, lot 61. Similar jars are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated in William B. Honey, The Ceramic Art of China and Other Countries of the Far East, London, 1945, col. pl. 26a and the collection of Sir Alan Barlow,  included in the exhibition Mostra d'Arte Cinese, Venice, 1954, cat. no. 333.

Sotheby's. Chinese Art Through the Eye of Sakamoto Gor: Early Chinese Art, New York, 13 Sep 2016, 10:00 AM