Lot 2. A sancai-glazed pottery, bottle vase, Tang dynasty.  Estimate 5,000 — 7,000 USD. Lot Sold 35,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's

the elegant ovoid body rising from a splayed foot to a narrow neck and flared rim, applied with a white slip and splashed with amber, green and transparent glazes over a resist lozenge pattern, partially merging to an olive tone, continuing into the interior of the mouth and stopping unevenly above the foot to reveal the pinkish-buff body, two Japanese wood boxes (5) - Height 8 1/4  in., 20.8 cm

Provenance: Christie’s Tokyo, 16th - 17th February 1980, lot 733.

Exhibited: Toyo Kobijyutsu ten [Oriental Antiquities Exhibition], Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi, Tokyo, 1974, cat. no. 5. 
Yoroppa Hizou Koimari Kakiemon Kotoji ten [Treasured in Europe - Exhibition of Ancient Ceramics of Old Imari and Kakiemon], Nihonbashi Takashimaya, Tokyo, 1975, cat. no. 9. 
Kaikan Tokubetsu Shuppin Seihin Senshu [Special Opening Exhibition - Anthology of Selected Masterpieces] , Kyushu National Museum, Fukuoka, 2005, cat. no. 40.

Notes: The form of the present vase is inspired by Buddhist holy water flasks, amrta kalasha, an attribute of the Bodhisattva, as seen in wall paintings of the Sui and Tang period. See a bronze example and cover formerly in the collection of Desmond Gure, included in the exhibition Loan Exhibition of The Arts of the T'ang Dynasty, The Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1955, cat. no. 366; and an engraved silver-gilt example, sold in our London rooms, 15th March 1973, lot 485.

Three Tang dynasty bottles of this form in the Royal Ontario Museum, one in bronze together with a clear-glazed and asancai-glazed stoneware example, illustrate the popularity of this form during the Tang dynasty, see Royal Ontario Museum. The T.T. Tsui Galleries of Chinese Art, Toronto, 1996, pl. 67. Compare also a sancai-glazed bottle vase, formerly in the collection of Eugene Bernat, also including in the 1955 exhibition, illustrated ibid, cat. no. 134; another from the collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, sold at Christie's New York, 20 March 2001, lot. 119 and a third illustrated in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 242.

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