Two 'Jizhou' 'papercut' teabowls, Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279)
Lot 136. Two 'Jizhou' 'papercut' teabowls, Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). Diameter of larger 4 5/8 in., 11.5 cm. Estimate 6,000 — 8,000 USD. Lot sold 6,250 USD. Photo Sotheby's
each with deep, gently curving sides rising from a short tapering foot to a slightly incurved rim, one resist-decorated to the interior with three quatrefoil medallions reserved in dark brown against a streaky amber-brown colored ground, the other with three sprays of plum blossom against a streaky gray-brown ground, the exterior with a dark brown glaze irregularly splashed with amber-colored spots in imitation of tortoiseshell, the base unglazed revealing the light buff body (2).
Property from the Estate of Dr. and Mrs. Richard Eckhardt.
Provenance: Acquired in Japan between 1947 - 1952 and thence by descent.
Note: The Jizhou kilns are renown for innovative decorative techniques among which is the use of paper cut-outs as stencils to create resist designs. For a discussion of the processes involved in producing such designs, see Robert D. Mowry, Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996, pp. 36-37 and no. 100 for an example similar to one in the present lot. For other similar bowls excavated at Yonghe Ji'an, Jiangxi Province in 1980 and now in the Jiangxi Provincial Museum see the exhibition catalogue Jizhou Kiln, Beijing, 2007 nos. 47 and 49.
Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 11 september 2012