A black-glazed conical bowl with russet 'partridge feather mottles', Northern Song-Jin dynasty, 11th-12th century
Lot 1495. A black-glazed conical bowl with russet 'partridge feather mottles', Northern Song-Jin dynasty, 11th-12th century; 4 7/8 in. (12.4 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 40,000 - USD 60,000. Price realised USD 197,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2016
The bowl has widely flared sides covered inside and out with a lustrous blackish-brown glaze liberally splashed in russet with 'partridge feather mottles' that thins to a yellowish-russet color below the rim and falls irregularly over the small foot to cover the base, box.
Provenance: The collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Bernat; Sotheby's New York, 7 November 1980, lot 168.
T.Y. Chao Collection; Sotheby's Hong Kong, 19 May 1987, lot 224.
Note: A similar bowl of larger size (19.5 cm.) is illustrated by Robert D. Mowry in Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers: Chinese Brown- and Black-glazed Ceramics, 400-1400, Harvard University Art Museums, 1996, pp. 140-41, no. 36. Like the present bowl, both the interior and exterior are decorated with 'partridge-feather mottles', while the two conical bowls, also illustrated, pp. 140-41, nos. 37 a & b, are decorated only on the interior, with a russet-brown glaze on the exterior. All three of these bowls are in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University.
Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art part II, 17 - 18 March 2016, New York