Lot 114. An exquisite Longquan celadon hexafoil brush washer, Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279); 11.2cm diam. (3). Sold for HK$613,600 (Est: $150 000 HKD - $200 000 HKD) © Bonhams 2001-2023

Delicately potted with slightly flaring walls rising to an open mouth of hexafoil form, the exterior decorated with one raised band around the rim and a further rib above the foot, covered overall with a lustrous layer of even powder-green glaze, the foot rim unglazed, revealing the reddish-beige body during firing, box. 

Provenance: Acquired in the 1980s.

Note: A Longquan celadon brush washer of this lobed form and size, and of similar glaze texture, is in the Kanazawa Nakamura Memorial Museum collection, illustrated in Asahi Shimbun, Song Ceramics, Tokyo, 1999, cat. no. 72; see another related example in National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Gugong Song ci tulu: Longquan yao, Ge yao, ji qita geyao, Taipei, 1974, no. 19. Compare also a similar washer in the Tokyo National Museum, published in Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum: Chinese Ceramics I, Tokyo, 1988, p. 126, no. 502.

Bonhams. SUBTLE BEAUTY THE AESTHETICS OF SONG DYNASTY, 29 November 2023, Hong Kong, Admiralty