Lot 1103. A rare 'Junyao' purple-splashed blue-glazed vase, Jin–Yuan dynasty (1115-1366), 17.4 cm, 6 7/8  in. Estimate 2,000,000 — 3,000,000 HKD (242,758 - 364,137 EUR). Photo: Sotheby's.

skilfully modelled with a slender pear-shaped body sweeping up to a gently flaring neck and lipped mouth-rim, the neck flanked by a pair of scroll handles extending to the shoulder and subtly encircled by two raised fillets, all supported on a separately potted but integrally glazed baluster five-lobed stand with projecting flanges, each side pierced with a trefoil or quatrefoil floral motif, the vase and stand covered overall with a pale milky-blue glaze pooling at the recessed areas and thinning to a pale mushroom tone at the raised edges, further accentuated with liberal reddish-purple splashes transmuting to violet, the unglazed footring revealing the pale grey body burnt light brown in the firing

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 1st November 1994, lot 7.
J.J. Lally & Co., New York.

Note: This attractive vase belongs to a distinctive group of Junyao vases supported on pierced pedestals, which were made in imitation of stands with cabriole legs. The present example is particularly notable for its splendid colouration which displays a range of red and lavender tones. A related vase of slightly larger size, but modelled with a wide everted rim and fish-shaped handles, was sold in our London rooms, 9th June 1987, lot 170; and a much larger pair of vases, but with scalloped mouths, was sold in our London rooms, 13th December 1991, lot 139. Compare also a similar vase but lacking the splashes, included in the exhibition Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1994, cat. no. 48 and sold in our London rooms, 12th November 2003, lot 68.

The attractive splashes on Junyao ware had an immense appeal to the literati and nobility of the time due to their calligraphic and flamboyant effect. Rose Kerr in Song Dynasty Ceramics, London, 2004, p. 34, notes that the splashes found on Junyao wares were made with the application of copper in broad brush strokes or washes over dry bluish glazes, which then merged when fired. While splashed Junyao wares are a characteristic product of the Junyao kilns in Henan province, it is rare to find a vase of this form with such exquisite magenta colouring.

Vases of this type are also known potted without handles: a slightly larger vase from the Alexander Collection, illustrated in Andre Leth, Catalogue of Selected Objects of Chinese Art in the Museum of Decorative Art, Copenhagen, 1959, pl. 80, was sold in our London rooms, 6th May 1931, lot 139; another was sold twice in our New York rooms, 29th November 1993, lot 235, and 23rd March 2011, lot 549; a third, included in the Oriental Ceramic Society Exhibition of Sung Dynasty Wares. Chun and Brown Glazes, London, 1952, cat. no. 21, was sold in our New York rooms, 4th June 1986, lot 47. A larger example with applied decoration was unearthed from a Yuan site in Inner Mongolia, and illustrated in The Complete Works of Chinese Ceramics, vol. 10, Shanghai, 2000, pl. 204, together with another Yuan example excavated in Beijing in 1972, pl. 205.

Sotheby's. Chinese Art from Two American Private Collections, Hong Kong, 05 avr. 2017, 10:30 AM