decorated with two quatrefoil cartouches enclosing ruyi scrollwork, separated by swirl motifs, below dots and key-fret bands along the rim and neck respectively, all against a dark brownish-olive ground stopping above the base and exposing the pale buff footring.

Note: Boldly painted with ruyi heads surrounding a central flower against a dark brown ground, this vase attests to the high level of creativity among potters active at the Jizhou kilns during the Southern Song dynasty. Located in central Jiangxi province, along the banks of the river Gan, these kilns, which had been active since the Tang dynasty, flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries, when the Song imperial court and its entourage moved to the city of Hangzhou.

Among the repertoire of innovative designs devised by the Jizhou potters, the pattern of guri (ruyi) scrolls is among the most challenging and when successfully fired, among the most visually striking. The design was carefully painted with a buff-coloured slip over the lustrous dark-brown glaze. Only the most capable and skilled potters were able to achieve clear designs, as the slip often runs over the black glaze dVases of this form and design are very rare and only one other vase painted with a similar motif, but fired to a less attractive brown glaze, appears to be published, when it was offered in our New York rooms, 23rd March 2011, lot 541. This technique was more commonly used on vases painted overall with the guri pattern, such as a meiping, excavated in Qingjiang county, Jiangxi province, now in the Jiangxi Zhangzhou City Museum, illustrated in Ye Peilan, Yuandai ciqi [Porcelain of the Yuan dynasty], Beijing, 1998, pl. 534; another in the Tokyo National Museum, included in Illustrated Catalogue of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics I, Tokyo, 1988, pl. 674; a third sold in our New York rooms, 30th March 2006, lot 33; and a further meiping from the Linyushanren collection, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 2nd December 2015, lot 2825.uring firing, making the overall design blurry. The clear rendering of the motif on the present piece, and its golden hues make this piece a masterpiece of the Jizhou kilns.

The Jizhou potters took inspiration from a wide variety of sources, including contemporary textiles, lacquer and silver. The design on this vase was likely inspired by contemporary lacquer wares, carved with ruyi-shaped pommels that are known with the Japanese name guri. This motif was also reproduced in silver, as on a meiping, excavated from a hoard in Deyang county, illustrated in Zhongguo meishu quanji. Gongyi meishu bian [Complete series of Chinese art. Arts and crafts section], vol. 10 Beijing, 1987, pl. 99.

Sotheby's. Monochrome II, 9 October 2020, Hong Kong