Lot 103. A rare 'Jizhou' meiping, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279). Height 8 1/4  in., 21 cm. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 USD. Lot sold 37,500 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

with rounded shoulders tapering towards the foot, the body decorated in brown with an alternating repeated design of scrolls confined within ruyi-shaped outlines, the narrow neck painted with a key-fret band, rising to a rounded lip decorated with dots.

Provenance: Acquired in California, circa 1980.
Collection of Dr. Qingcai Zhang.

Note: The technique used to create this type of design is difficult to control and as a result, vessels decorated this way are scarce.  An example of another meiping of similar size, also with the same all-over scrolling pattern was sold in our London sale rooms, 17th November 1999, lot 728; another is illustrated in Good Fortune Throughout History - An Exhibition of Black Glaze and Porcelain from Tzu-chou and Ji-Chou Kilns, Taipei, 2004, no. 41; and one on loan from the Florence and Herbert Irving collection is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (L.1992.62.25).

This kind of scroll design is best known and likely derived from contemporary carved lacquerware where it was used mainly in the decoration of bowls, dishes, trays and boxes. Similar designs were also made on silver vessels. For a silver example of a meiping and cover with this design excavated from a silver hoard in Deyang county, see Zhongguo Meishu Quanji, Gongyi meishu bian, vol. 10, Beijing, 1987, pl. 99.

The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd. thermoluminescence test no. P106s56 is consistent with the dating of this lot.