Lot 190. A rare and large 'Ding' vase with an inscribed 'guan' mark, Five Dynasties - Northern Song dynasty, 10th century. Height 16⅛ in., 41 cm. Estimate: 400,000 - 600,000 USD. Lot sold: 504,000 USD. © Sotheby's 2021

of elegant and voluminous proportions, the meiping-form body rising from a narrow base and sweeping to high rounded shoulders, surmounted by a tall waisted neck and flaring into a conical dish-shaped mouth with a short galleried rim, all under a translucent ivory-tinged glaze pooling into a deeper tone in the recesses, the base similarly glazed and inscribed with the character guan (official).

Provenance: Christie's Hong Kong, 29th September 1992, lot 451.

Note: Deceptively simple in design, this elegant vase is striking for its graceful proportions, fine potting and smooth glaze. Freely incised to the base with the guan (official) character, this vase is a rare product of the Dingzhou kilns in Hebei province. Lü Chenglong from the Palace Museum in Beijing notes that all white porcelains bearing the 'guan' mark are the products of the Ding kiln, except for a very small group that belongs to the Xing kiln. Lü further suggests that the ‘guan’ mark is an indication of quality; these porcelains were produced above certain standards in order to be selected for the court use (see Lü Chenglong, ed., Dingyaoyaji gugongbowuyuan zhencang ji chutu dingyao ciqi huicui / Selection of Ding Ware. The Palace Museum’s Collection and Archaeological Excavation, Beijing, 2012, pp 13 and 18).

White-glazed wares inscribed with the character guan (official) or the characters xin guan (new official), have been recovered from datable tombs ranging from the Tang dynasty through the Song period. The earliest known site that contained vessels inscribed in this manner is the tomb of the high official Qian Kuan (d. 895), in Lin'an county, Zhejiang province, while other examples inscribed with this character have been discovered at sites in Beijing, Liaoning, and Hebei province, illustrated in Ding ci yishu / The Art of Ding Porcelain, Shijiazhuang, 2002, pp 164-169. While in this period kilns producing ceramics for the court were neither strictly controlled nor solely restricted to imperial commissions, from the middle of the Tang dynasty through the Five Dynasties period, court officials were sent to supervise porcelain production and taxation at the Ding kilns (see The Decorated Porcelains of Dingzhou: White Ding Wares from the Collection of the National Palace Museum Special Exhibition, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2014, p. 19).

Related Ding vases of this form with the guan mark appear to be very rare. A closely related example formerly in the Charles B. Hoyt Collection, attributed to the Five Dynasties to early Northern Song period, was bequeathed to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (acc. no. 50.875). Another example of the same type, unearthed from a Liao dynasty tomb in Zhuluke, Jianping, Liaoning province, now in the Liaoning Provincial Museum, Shenyang, is illustrated in Feng Yongqian, ‘Liaoningsheng Jianping and Xinmin de sanzuo liaomu [Three Liao dynasty tombs in Jianping and Xinmin, Liaoning province]’, Kaogu, 1960, no. 2, pl. 3:2. Li Huibing suggests that vase is not a Liao porcelain, but a product of the Ding kiln, made for the Liao market (see Li Huibing, ‘Guanyu ‘guan’‘xinguan’kuanbaici chandi wenti de tantao [Discussion on the place of manufacture for the white porcelains with ‘guan’ or ‘xinguan’ mark]’, Wenwu, no. 12, 1984, Beijing, p. 63). Li also notes that one of the characteristics of early Ding wares is that the porcelains often have kiln grits adhering to the base (ibid., p. 59).

Another very similar vase with the guan mark, sold by Yamanaka & Co. to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City in 1940, is published on the Museum’s website (acc. no. 40-3/2) and illustrated in Sekai tōji zenshū / Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 12, Tokyo, 1977, col. pl. 1. The Museum attributes the vase to the Liao dynasty, but does not specify the location of its production. Its close similarity to the aforementioned Ding vases now in Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Liaoning Provincial Museum, however, indicates the Nelson-Atkins vase is likely of the same origin.

Very few vases of this type have appeared at auction. Compare a slightly smaller example of the same form but with decorative fillets encircling the shoulder, similarly inscribed to the base with the guan character, sold recently in our Hong Kong rooms, 8th October 2019, lot 3002; another unmarked vase of a slightly smaller size, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 30th April - 2nd May 1995, lot 635; and a third smaller example with a ribbed neck, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 31st May 2016, lot 3110.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 21 September 2021