Lot 202. A sancai-glazed pottery bird-form oil lamp, Tang dynasty (618-907). Length 4 3/4  in., 11.9 cm. Estimate 20,000 — 30,000 USD. Lot sold 40,000 USD. © Sotheby's.

molded as a plump-bodied recumbent bird with its neck arched over the opening between the feather-molded wings to grasp a lobed flower-form opening to support the wick, the body crisply molded with foliate decoration and feathers on a granulated ground, all beneath an amber and green-splashed glaze stopping irregularly above the base to reveal the buff pink body, the interior unglazed.

Provenance: New England Private Collection, acquired prior to the mid 1960s. 
Harlan J. Berk Ltd., Chicago.

Note: Compare related bird-form sancai-glazed oil lamps, including one in the British Museum illustrated in Oriental Ceramics. The World's Great Collections, vol. 5, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 27, and another from the Georges deBatz collection sold at Christie's New York, 30th November 1983, lot 314. 

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 12 sept. 2018, 10:30 AM