Lot 1107. A large painted grey pottery pear-shaped jar and cover, hu, Western Han dynasty, late 2nd-early 1st century BC, 23¾ in. (60.3 cm.) high. Estimate USD 4,000 - USD 6,000. Price realised USD 3,500. © Christie's Images Ltd 2011 

The bulbous body painted in red, white and black with sweeping cloud motifs set between raised borders and interrupted by a pair of applied molded mask handles, the neck similarly painted below a band of pendent blades, raised on a pedestal foot, the domed cover painted en suite. 

Provenance: In the Gordon Collection, United States, by 1997. 

Note: This large painted jar and cover are quite similar in size and decoration to one illustrated by d'Argencé in the exhibition catalogue, Chinese Treasures from the Avery Brundage Collection, The Asia Society, New York, 1968, no. 56. Another is illustrated by R. Krahl in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994, vol. 1, p. 60, no. 70. The author notes that P.C. Sturman in 'Celestial Journeys - Meditations on (and in) Han Dynasty Painted Pots at the Metropolitan Museum of Art', Orientations, May 1988, pp. 54-67, interprets the cloud motif as the "celestial vapours through which the deceased would travel on their way to immortality", and illustrates a similar jar and cover, figs. 6-6b.  

Christie's. Magnificent Qing Monochrome Porcelains and Earlier Works of Art from the Gordon Collection, 24 March 2011, New York