of circular section, the box with low curved sides rising from a shallow lower body set over a slightly spreading foot, the cover with similar curved sides and a gently domed top, the top carved with a blossoming peony surrounded by leafy foliage, the interior set with three persimmon-glazed cups separated by three similarly decorated foliage bands, the box covered in a olive-green glaze save for the interior rim and foot, revealing the burnt brown clay body from firing (2).  

Exhibited: The Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Marvin L. Gordon, Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, J.J. Lally & Co., New York, 2009. cat. no. 10.

Note: See two closely related Northern Song dynasty cosmetic boxes with similar persimmon-glazed cups set to the interior, the first excavated with the cover missing from the Yaozhou kiln sites at Huangbaozhen, Shaanxi province in 1981, now in the collection of the Yaozhou Kiln Museum, Tongchuan City, published in Zhang Bai, ed., Zhongguo chutu taoci quanji Shaanxi / Complete Collection of Ceramic Art Unearthed in China. Shaanxi, Beijing, 2008, pl. 141, and the second in Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum, Seto, published in Yōshūyō: Chūgoku Nakahara ni hana hiraita mei kama / The Masterpieces of Yaozhou Ware, Tokyo, 1997, pl. 52.

The dating of this lot is consistent with the result of a thermoluminescence test, Oxford Authentication Ltd., no. P104d36.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 17 march 2021