Lot 2082. A rare Cizhou-type silver-decorated black-glazed tea bowl, Southern Song-Jin dynasty, 12th-13th century; 4 5/8 in. (11.7 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 6,000 - USD 8,000. Price Realized USD 13,750. © Christie's Images Ltd 2014. 

The bowl has deep conical sides that become upright near the russet-edged rim, and is covered with a blackish-brown glaze decorated in silver glaze on the interior with a central flower head below four large flowers, each centered by a character, shou shan fu hai (mountains of longevity and oceans of fortune), all reserved on a striated ground below a line border. On the exterior the glaze ends in an irregular line on a lighter brown glaze above the foot to reveal the granular buff ware.

Note: The use of silver glaze to decorate Cizhou-type wares appears to be quite rare. A pear-shaped bottle of Cizhou type with silver glaze decoration, in the R. Hatfield Ellsworth Collection, is illustrated by R. Mowry in Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers: Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics, 400-1400, Harvard University, 1996, pp. 167-68, no. 57, where it is dated Jin dynasty.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, New York, 20 - 21 March 2014