Lot 1105. A rare 'Cizhou' sgraffiato vase, Northern Song-Jin dynasty (960-1234), 25.4 cm, 10 in. Estimate 1,500,000 — 2,000,000 HKD (182,069 - 242,758 EUR). Photo: Sotheby's.

the pear-shaped body rising from a splayed foot to a tapering neck and a flat everted mouth-rim, the exterior carved through the dark brown glaze to the creamy-white slip underneath with a dense design, the main body with a wide geometric frieze of overlapping hexagonal panels enclosing trefoil clouds against a striated ground, all below five bands encircling the neck, two detailed with wavy lines and foliate scrolls respectively, the unglazed footring and recessed base revealing the pale grey body

Provenance: Sotheby's London, 17th November 1999, lot 731.
J.J. Lally & Co., New York.

Note: This vase is very rare for both its elegant pear-shaped form, which is seldom found among vases made at 'Cizhou' kilns, and its remarkably well-executed design. While vases made in the sgraffiato technique, in which the design is carved through a black slip covering a white slip beneath, were made at various kilns in Northern China from the 11th through the 12th century, they were commonly decorated with large flower scrolls.

No other closely related vase appears to have been published and it is difficult to attribute this piece to any of the known 'Cizhou' kilns. The form is also rarely seen, but is known, for example from a Yaozhou vase formerly in the Eumorfopoulos Collection, illustrated in John Ayers, Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1980, col. pl. 29.

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