Lot 834. A large Cizhou vase, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127); 15 3/4 in. (40 cm.) high, cloth box. Estimate USD 30,000 – USD 50,000. Price Realised 60,480 USD. © Christie's 2023

The vase has a round body that tapers to the splayed foot, and a tall slender neck rising to the wide, flaring dish-shaped mouth. It is covered with a creamy white slip under a clear glaze suffused with fine crackle, with some areas stained a pale reddish tone opposite a double-stranded arching handle. The ewer is covered overall with a glossy, pale-bluish-tinged translucent glaze.

Provenance: Private collection, New Canaan, Connecticut.
J. J. Lally & Co., New York, no. 4900.

Note: A very similar Northern Song vase excavated in 1998 at Huangpu, Tochuan city, Shaanxi province, is illustrated by Zhang (ed.) in Zhongguo chutu ciqi quanji (Complete Collection of Ceramic Art Unearthed in China), vol. 15, Shaanxi, Beijing, 2008, p. 130, no. 130, where it is noted that although the vase was discovered at the Yaozhou kiln site, it is not Yaozhou ware.

Lot 835. A carved Cizhou jar, Northern Song dynasty, 11th century; 7 1/2 in. (19 cm.) wide. Estimate USD 15,000 – USD 25,000. Price Realised 47,880 USD. © Christie's 2023

The globular body is carved through the white slip with three leaping deer on a ring-punched ground interspersed with stylized clouds and flame motifs, all above a band of overlapping petals above the foot. The incised decoration has been infilled with a reddish-brown pigment and the jar is covered overall with a clear glaze.

Provenance: Blitz Oriental Art, Amsterdam, 2000.
J. J. Lally & Co., New York, no. 3185.

Note: The decoration of a leaping deer on a ring-punched ground can also be found on Song-dynasty Cizhou pillows. See two examples illustrated by J. Wirgin in Sung Ceramic Designs, London, 1979, pl. 43, b (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) and c (formerly Lord Cunliff Collection).

Lot 836. A carved Cizhou sgraffiato vase, meiping, Northern Song-Jin dynasty (960-1234); 14 3/4 in. (37.5 cm.) high, cloth box. Estimate USD 25,000 – USD 35,000. Price Realised 27,720 USD. © Christie's 2023

The tapering body is carved through the creamy-white slip to the pale-grey ground with a central band of geese and oversized leaves between two foliate scrolls above and a petal border below, all under a clear glaze.

Provenance: J. J. Lally & Co., New York, no. 3424.

Note: A Cizhou meiping of very similar form carved with the same pattern is in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum, donated by Mr. Hirota Matsushige, and is published in Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum: Chinese Ceramics I, Tokyo, 1988, p. 138, no. 555. A slightly larger Cizhou meiping with related bands of decoration is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gift of Mrs. Samuel T. Peters, accession no. 26.292.56.

Lot 838. A Cizhou sgraffiato deep bowl, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127); 6 in. (15.2 cm.) high, cloth box. Estimate USD 15,000 – USD 20,000. Price Realised 2,920 USD.  © Christie's 2023

The deep rounded sides are carved through the dark brown glaze to the white slip ground with a band of five stylized leafy sprays between line borders. The brown glaze extends slightly over the in-curved mouth rim on the white slip-covered interior and the vessel is covered overall with a clear glaze that stops above the foot ring.

Provenance: J. J. Lally & Co., New York, no. 4502.

Note: A Cizhou jar of similar shape, with a design of 'cash' pattern cut through the dark brown glaze to the white slip ground, from the Linyushanren Collection, was sold at Christie's New York, 22 March 2018, lot 508. Another deep bowl of this distinctive shape carved with a design of foliate sprays and small florettes in The Metropolitan Museum of Art is illustrated by Y. Mino in Freedom of Clay and Brush Through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tzu-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 AD, Indianapolis, 1980, pp. 110-11, no. 43.

The design found on the present jar, with leafy sprays on a combed ground, can also be found on a white-ground Cizhou jar of the same shape, also from the Linyushanren Collection, sold at Chrisite's New York, 24 July 2020, lot 63.

The results of Oxford Authentication, Ltd. thermoluminescence test no. P109a50 are consistent with the dating of this lot.

Lot 839. A very rare Cizhou sgraffiato vase, Northern Song-Jin dynasty 12th-13th century; 9 in. (22.9 cm.) high, cloth box. Estimate USD 150,000 – USD 200,000. Price Realised 277,200 USD © Christie's 2023

The pear-shaped vase has a wide neck that tapers to the flat, everted rim, and is carved on the body through the dark-brown glaze to the creamy-white slip ground with a wide band of geometric panels enclosing trefoil clouds on striated grounds, below a band of foliate scroll and a band of wavy lines on the neck. The top of the neck and the mouth rim are left in creamy white. The grooved foot and recessed base are unglazed.

Provenance: Offered, Sotheby's London, 17 November 1999, lot 731.
J. J. Lally & Co., New York, no. x2609.

Note: The shape of this vase is rare to find in Cizhou wares, but a Yaozhou vase of similar shape from the Eumofopoulos Collection is illustrated by J. Ayers in Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1980, col. pl. 29, where it is dated to the 11th-12th century. The design of the trefoil-like clouds in the central band on the present vase is also very rare.

The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd. thermoluminescence test no. P199u52 is consistent with the dating of this lot.

Lot 844. A Cizhou-type russet-splashed black-glazed vase, Northern Song-Jin dynasty (960-1234); 6 1/2 in. (16.5 cm.) high, cloth box. Estimate USD 40,000 – USD 60,000. Price Realised 52,920 USD © Christie's 2023

The vase has a tapering body and high rounded shoulders surmounted by a short neck and everted rim. It is covered overall with a lustrous blackish-brown glaze splashed with russet-brown markings in the form of abstract five-petaled flowers, and ends in an irregular line above the foot.

Provenance: J. J. Lally & Co., New York, no. 4415A.

Note: A meiping in the Art Institute of Chicago, which is similarly glazed and also has a flat, everted mouth rim, is illustrated by R. Mowry in Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, Harvard University Art Museums, 1996, no. 35. In his discussion of the russet markings the author notes that the "term, zhegu ban (partridge-feather mottles) appears in texts of the mid-tenth century to describe ceramics with mottled decoration." He further notes that the larger "partridge-feather mottles," of the type seen on both meiping, "began to appear in dark-glazed Cizhou-type wares in the eleventh century."

Christie's. J. J. Lally& Co., New York, 23.03.2023