Lot 509. A rare inscribed 'Cizhou' black-glazed sgraffiato meiping, Jin-Yuan dynasty (1115-1368). Height 10 1/2  in., 26.5 cm. Estimate 12,000 — 15,000 USD. Lot Sold 68,750 USD. © Sotheby's.

the robustly potted ovoid body with gently rounded sides rising to a short waisted ringed neck and cupped mouth, applied overall with a glossy dark-brown glaze, carved through to leave a broad register of lotus and aquatic plants set against a hatched wave ground, segmented by two narrow vertical cartouches, each enclosing five characters together reading jiahe sheng guizi menshan chu gaoren (harmonious household produces abundant offspring, virtuous family educates illustrious figures), all enclosed within double-line borders, the thick glaze pooling at the shoulder and stopping unevenly above the knife-pared foot revealing the buff-colored body, Japanese wood box (??).

Exhibited: Chūgoku Kotōji Tō-Sō Meitoten [Chinese Ceramics Tang-Song Masterworks exhibition], The Japan Ceramic Society, Shirakiya, Tokyo, 1964, cat. no. 169.

Note: This jar is striking for its carefully and confidently incised lotus design over a ground of parallel diagonal lines. Fragments of vessels carved with such large-scale designs against finely incised grounds were discovered, for example, at the Wayaogou kiln site in Shanxi province, and included in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition Kiln Sites of Ancient China. Recent Finds of Pottery and Porcelain, British Museum, London, 1980, cat. nos 478 and 480, where the authors mention, p. 104, that among the products of these kilns, incised wares were finer and more carefully executed than those with cut-out designs. 

A jar boldly carved with lotus against a ground of incised waves was sold in these rooms, 21st September 2006, lot 98; a somewhat coarser example with stylized flowers, in the Baur Foundation, Geneva, is illustrated in Margaret Medley, Yüan Porcelain and Stoneware, London, 1974, pl. 108b; another is published in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, vol. 1, pl. 601; and a larger jar, with a further classic scroll band on the shoulders, was sold in our London rooms, 6th April 1976, lot 78.