Lot 2086. A Cizhou-type russet-splashed black-glazed bowl, Jin dynasty, 12th-13th century; 4 3/8 in. (11.2 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 4,000 - USD 6,000. Price Realized USD 5,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2014. 

The rounded, conical body is covered below the russet-edged rim with a lustrous, russet-dappled, blackish-brown glaze that is decorated on the interior with five large russet splashes composed of small russet flecks, and on the exterior falls in an irregular line on a thin brown glaze that ends above the unglazed foot to expose the granular ware that has fired to a buff color.

Note: Dark-glazed bowls of this type, with large, evenly spaced russet splashes, usually numbering between three and five, were popular wares produced at various Cizhou-type kilns in the north in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. A related Jin dynasty russet-splashed bowl, but of larger size (19.4 cm.), from the collection of R. Hatfield Ellsworth, is illustrated by R. Mowry in Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996, p. 155, no. 48.

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