the rounded, vertically-lobed sides rising from a small footring, applied overall with a greyish sea-green glaze and suffused with a network of icy crackle, the glaze pooling at the recesses and save for the footring unglazed revealing the dark body - 8.5 cm, 3 1/4  in.

Provenance: Collection of Peter Arlidge (1976-2014)

Note: The present cup, with its thinly potted, dark body and thick luminous glaze with fine crackles, belongs to a group of celadon wares made to resemble the fabled guan (official) wares that were produced for the imperial court during the Southern Song dynasty. The attractive jade-like glaze of these pieces is particularly thick as it was applied in multiple layers that required successive firing, a method that was most probably borrowed from the imperial kilns at Laohudong in Hangzhou where guan ware was produced. The subtle web of crackles was also similarly achieved through a well-controlled cooling process after the last firing.

Longquan celadon wares of this type are discussed by Zhu Boqian in Celadons from Longquan Kilns, Taipei, 1998, pp. 37-39, who notes that two distinct types were made, those with a dark body and a thick glaze, such as this piece, and those with a light grey body; see two dark-bodied Longquan cups of round shape with a crackled glaze excavated in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, illustrated ibid., pls 141 and 142. Another dark-bodied cup was sold in our London rooms, 11th December 1990, lot 234; and a fourth, from the Falk Collection, was sold at Christie’s New York, 20th September 2001, lot 111. A guan cup covered in a similar thick bluish glaze, unearthed from Laohudong, is illustrated in Hangzhou Laohudong yaozhi ciqi jingxuan [Selected Masterpieces from Laohudong Kiln Site, Hangzhou], Beijing, 2002, pl. 124.

The elegant fluted form of this piece was popular at Longquan and numerous vessels of this form, although covered with a glaze lacking the crackles, are known; for example, see a Longquan celadon cup in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in  The Complete Collection of Treasures in the Palace Museum. Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (II), Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 145; and a further cup published in Bo Gyllensvärd, 'Recent finds of Chinese Ceramics at Fostat II', BMFEA, no. 47, 1975, pl. 19, no. 1. 

Sotheby's. Curiosity III, Hong Kong, 04 Apr 2017, 10:30 AM