A fine and rare 'Jun' basin, Jin dynasty (1115-1234)
Lot 507. A fine and rare 'Jun' basin, Jin dynasty (1115-1234); diameter 10 1/2 in., 26.8 cm. Estimate 100,000 — 150,000 USD. Lot sold 134,500 USD. Courtesy Sotheby's.
with steeply rounded, heavily potted sides rising from a slightly concave base with a thick knife-pared foot rim, covered throughout with a bubble-suffused glaze of attractive lavender-blue colour draining to a pale tone on the everted rim and pooling on the flattened center, the glaze on the underside of bright tone thinning beneath the rim and pooling above the foot.
Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 17th November 1975, lot 10.
Collection of T.Y. Chao, Hong Kong.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 18th November 1986, lot 22.
Exhibited: An Anthology of Chinese Ceramics, Min Chiu Society Exhibition, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1980, cat. no. 35.
Note: Basins of this size and form are exceptionally rare. A similar plain blue basin is illustrated in Tianjin shi yishu bowuguang cang ci, Beijing, 1993, pl. 60. A basin, of larger size and with splashed decoration, was excavated near Baoding, Hebei province; compare Hebei sheng chutu wenwu xuanji, Beijing, 1980, pl. 396. For another basin of similar proportions but with splashed decoration, compare Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. III (ii), London, 2006, p. 464, no. 1467.
Sotheby's. Harmony of Form, Serenity of Color: A Private Collection of 'Song' Ceramics, New York, 23 march 2011