Lot 312. A rare Dingyao persimmon-glazed cupstand, Song dynasty (960-1279); 12.5 cm, 4 7/8  in. Estimate 50,000 - 70,000 HKD. Lot sold 300,000 HKD. © Sotheby's.

modelled after the lacquer prototype with a cup-shaped receptacle, supported on a circular dish and a hollow gently splayed foot, covered overall save for the footring with a copper-russet glaze thinning at the edges, the unglazed footring revealing the white body.

Property from the Xinyangtang Collection.

Provenance: Collection of Zhang Ling, member of the Kau Chi Society, Hong Kong, prior to 2000.

Note: Cupstands covered in this soft persimmon glaze were a relatively rare product of the Dingzhou kilns at Quyang in Ding county. A persimmon-glazed cupstand of similar proportions in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in The Complete Collections of Treasures in the Palace Museum. Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (I), Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 86; another in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, is illustrated in Rose Kerr, Song Dynasty Ceramics, London, 2004, pl. 40; and one with a lobed dish, in the St Louis Art Museum, was included in the exhibition Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell and Partridge Feathers, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 1995, cat. no. 13. See also a cupstand sold in these rooms, 5th April 2017, lot 3204; and another from the collections of Arthur M. Sackler and Ruth Dreyfus, sold at Christie’s New York, 1st December 1994, lot 155.

Cup and cupstand, brown-glazed stoneware, Ding ware, China, Northern Song dynasty, 11th century, Aubrey Le Blond Gift [2007], Museum no. C.603-1918. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

A rare Dingyao persimmon-glazed cupstand, Song dynasty (960-1279), 12 cm, 4 3/4  in. Sold for 375,000 HKD at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 5th April 2017, lot 3204. © Sotheby's

Cf. my post: A rare Dingyao persimmon-glazed cupstand, Song dynasty (960-1279)

The close dialogue between craftsmen working in different media in the Song dynasty is particularly evident on monochrome wares. The elegant and unassuming form of this piece, and its delicate persimmon glaze recalls examples made in lacquer. Furthermore, both porcelains and lacquers of this type were fitted with thin metal rims: to protect the unglazed lip of Ding ware as the vessels were fired upside down, and to prevent chipping along the delicate lacquer edges.

Sotheby's. Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 30 May 2019