Lot 108. A superb Jizhou black-glazed 'leaf' bowl, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279); 15.5 cm, 6 ⅛ in. Estimate: 600,000 - 800,000 HKD. Lot sold 756,000 HKD. Courtesy Sotheby's.

of conical shape, covered with a lustrous brownish-black glaze thinning at the rim, decorated on the interior with a worm-eaten leaf, forming an attractive honey-brown silhouette, the foot left unglazed revealing the pale body, Japanese wood box.

Property from the Aoyama Studio Collection.

Provenance: A Japanese private collection, Tokyo.

Note: The Jizhou kilns at Yonghezhen, Ji'an county in Jiangxi province, a region formerly called Jizhou, were not blessed with the finest raw materials for making stonewares, but came up with the most original ideas for decorating. They were unique in exploiting the chemical composition of real tree leaves for making tea bowls with most naturalistic – because natural – silhouette leaf designs.

See a related bowl illustrated in Gugong Songci tulu. Longquan yao, Geyao ji qita ge yao/Illustrated Catalogue of Sung Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum. Lung-ch'üan Ware, Ko Ware and Other Wares, Taipei, 1974, pl. 72; and another bowl from the collection of Alfred Clark, included in Ryūsen Shūhō / Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, vol. I, pl. 677, and sold in our London rooms, 11th May 2011, lot 3