Note: Cizhou sgraffiato decoration, as displayed by the current vase, is remarkably difficult to execute successfully. This technique involved covering the vessel with a white slip, and after drying applying a dark slip over the top. Areas of the dark slip were then cut away leaving the decoration in dark brown against a white ground. Details of the decoration were also incised through the dark slip, using a sharp point, to reveal the paler slip beneath. The vessel was then covered in a colorless transparent glaze and the piece fired. The decorator had to employ great skill and care in cutting the ground of the decoration away, since it was difficult not to cut too deeply and remove some of the pale slip along with the dark.

A small number of related vases using this decorative technique are published, such as the vase in The Matsuoka Museum of Art, illustrated in Selected Masterpieces of Oriental Ceramics, Tokyo, 1984, no. 23; and a vase of similar form and decoration but with a rounded body is published in in T. Mikami, Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol. 13, Tokyo, 1981, p. 238, no. 229. The current type also has a green glazed version, such as the Cizhou sgraffiato vase of very similar proportion and decoration in the Ataka collection, illustrated in Masterpieces of Old Chinese Ceramics from Ataka Collection, Osaka, 1972, Catalogue, no. 21. Another example with a compressed body is in the collection of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated by He Li, in Chinese Ceramics: A New Comprehensive Survey, New York, 1996, no. 319. Compare, also, Cizhou vases of similar form and pattern, but decorated in slip painting and incising technique, such as two vases in the Gotoh Art Museum, Japan, illustrated in Mayuyama Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, vol. 1, pp.188-189, nos. 559-560.

Christie's. Masterpieces of Cizhou Ware: The Linyushanren Collection Part IV. New York, 13 September 2018