Lot 45. A 'Jizhou' meiping with florets, Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). Estimate 10,000 — 15,000 USD. Lot sold 12,000 USD. © Sotheby's.

the ovoid body set with a cylindrical neck and a rolled lip, dressed in a dark brown slip decorated with scattered 'paper-resist' florets revealing the buff body beneath; 10 in., 25.3 cm.

Note: This kind of decoration with reserved blossoms on a black glaze is well known from the Jizhou kilns in Jiangxi province. See a slightly smaller vase of this shape decorated in this style but with prunus blossoms, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, London, 1994, p. 281, pl. 521, where it is mentioned that another related vase with reserved peach blossoms, excavated in Nanchang county, Jiangxi province, and attributed to the Song Dynasty, is included in Wenwu, 1975, no.3, pl.4, fig. 2. Compare also a vase of this form also decorated with prunus blossom in reserve, in the St. Louis Art Museum collection, illustrated in Robert D. Mowry, Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, Mass., 1995, pl. 104.   

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 31 mars 2005