Sotheby's. An Important Collection of Chinese Ceramics, Hong Kong, 08 Oct 2019
A rare Cizhou sgraffiato 'peony' vase, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127)
Lot 3004. A rare Cizhou sgraffiato 'peony' vase, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127); 21.7 cm, 8 1/2 in. Estimate 450,000 — 550,000 HKD (57,371 - 70,120 USD). Lot Sold 562,500 HKD (71,623 USD). Courtesy Sotheby's.
the baluster body elegantly rising from a splayed foot to a tall trumpet neck with a rolled lip, freely carved through the layer of brown slip to the ivory white layer beneath with large peony blooms borne on lush broad leaves, all above a lappet band at the base and covered overall with a transparent glaze.
Provenance: Sotheby's London, 13th July 2005, lot 132.
Note: Notable for their vividly contrasting sgraffiato decoration, vases of this type are held in important museums and private collections worldwide; see one from the collection of Hirota Matsushige, now in the Tokyo National Museum, published in Illustrated Catalogue of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics I, Tokyo, 1988, pl. 560; another in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, pl. 115; a third in the Matsuoka Museum of Art, Tokyo, included in the Museum’s exhibition Famous Pieces of Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, Tokyo, 1983, cat. no. 23; and a further example in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, published in John Ayers, Far Eastern Art in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1980, pl. 113.
A reconstructed vase of this form and decoration was recovered at the Cizhou kiln site in Guantai, Ci County, Henan province and illustrated in The Cizhou Kiln Site at Guantai, Beijing, 1997, col. pl. 9, no. 2.