Lot 140. A cream and dark-brown slip-painted Cizhou meiping, Song-Jin Dynasty, 11th-13th Century; 22.2cm high, box. Sold for US$14,025 (Estimate US$12,000 - 18,000). © Bonhams 2001-2023

the elegant high-shouldered vase covered in a thick cream slip with a milky glaze stopping above the spreading short foot, the upper half and shoulders with three equidistant loosely-painted leafy sprays in a rich dark brown slip, all below the short cylindrical neck and bulbous conical mouth rim.

Provenance: J. J. Lally & Co., New York, 4 November 2011
J. J. Lally & Co., 1997
Collection of Robert Ferris
Christie's New York, 1980s.

Published: Brush & Clay: Paintings by Robert Ferris, Chinese Ceramics of the Song Dynasty from the Artist's Collection, J. J. Lally & Co., New York, 1997, no. 18.

Exhibited: Brush & Clay: Paintings by Robert Ferris, Chinese Ceramics of the Song Dynasty from the Artist's Collection, J. J. Lally & Co., New York, 19 September to 18 October 1997, no. 18.

Note: Narrow meiping vases painted with brown-slip on a cream ground are well recorded and are generally found in two different forms. The first shape, like the present example, has a small mouth with a lipped rim, whilst the other has a tall mouth with a wider, ovoid rim. The first are often found with abstract frond-like leaves.

Compare the similar Cizhou meiping in the Barlow Collection, illustrated by Sullivan, Chinese ceramics, Bronzes and Jades in the Collection of Sir Alan and Lady Barlow, pl. 56b, where it is described as "possibly from the Kuan-t'ai kilns."

See also Yutaka Mino and Katherine R. Tsiang, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz'u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D., Indianapolis, 1980, p. 160, where the authors discuss the likely-hood that the present form was made in Yuxian - where the Guantai kilns was the production center for Cizhou ware.

See also a similar vase in the O.C.S. Exhibition, The Arts of the Sung Dynasty, London, 1960, and later sold at Sotheby's London, 8 July 1975, lot 77 from the Collection of John Henry Levy.

A larger example was sold at Christie's New York, 18-19th March 2021, lot 889. Another very slightly larger was sold at Sotheby's New York, 6 November 1981, lot 194.

Bonhams. CHINESE WORKS OF ART AND PAINTINGS, New York, March 20, 2023