An exceedingly rare guan-glazed octagonal bottle vase, Song dynasty or later

22 mai 2024

An exceedingly rare guan-glazed octagonal bottle vase, Song dynasty or later

Lot 43. Property from an important European collection. An exceedingly rare guan-glazed octagonal bottle vase, Song dynasty or later; h. 22 cm. Lot Sold 20,415,000 HKD (Estimate 8,000,000 - 12,000,000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2024

the finely potted octagonal body of compressed globular form, rising from a short spreading foot to a tall ribbed tapering neck with broad everted rim, covered overall in a thick soft bluish-grey glaze suffused with a matrix of golden crackles.

Provenance: Acquired from Edward T. Chow (1910-80) in the late 1960s.

Note: A legacy of the Southern Song dynasty, exclusively made for the imperial court, guan (‘official’) wares from Hangzhou are extremely rare and highly sought after. They are renowned for their elegant form and unctuous glaze, emulating a restrained beauty which embodies the aesthetics of the period.

It is a story of success from wreckage and despair. Having failed to defend their territory against the Jurchens in the north, the Song court withdrew to the south of the Yangtze River and established its capital at Lin’an in Hangzhou. Despite a sense of insecurity, the retreat brought peace to the empire, allowing all forms of arts and culture to revive and flourish. Official kilns were established in Hangzhou to produce refined wares in celadon glazes with veined crackles that had once exclusively defined the esteemed northern Ru wares. Improving on their stylistic simplicity, with an emphasis on archaism favoured by the scholars of the period, the southern manufactory succeeded in creating elegant objects of its own right that captured the zeitgeist.

One of the earliest references to guan kilns may be found in Tan zhai bihen [Composed measures from the Tan Studio], written by the Southern Song scholar Ye Zhi: ‘The kiln [site] at Xiuneisi, referred to as the inner kiln, inherited the production [method] of the ancient capital and produced celadon wares that used clear clay as standard. [These wares were] extremely fine with a glossy coloured [glaze] that was lustrous and translucent. They were treasured [by everyone] in the realm. Subsequently, a different new kiln was established at Jiaotanxia [which produced wares that were] greatly different from [that produced at the] old kiln.’

With its angularity enveloped in multiple layers of opaque jade-celadon glaze, the present vase stands for the refined taste of the Song, celebrating the delicate balance between lines and curves, appealing to the senses of sight and touch. The dark brown surface underneath is revealed where the glaze thins, crackles or retracts, adding a veneer of sophistication to the vessel.

Continuing the practice of the fabled Ru kiln of the Northern Song dynasty, artisans of the Southern Song official kilns sought inspiration not only from archaic bronzes but also exotic glassware. Glass vessels imported from the Near East were cherished in ancient China, as evidenced by a glass mallet vase discovered in the Liao dynasty tomb of the princess of State Chen, which closely resembles the porcelain counterparts from Ru and Laohudong sites (see Mori Tatsuya, ‘Ruyao yu Nansong guanyao: Shaozao jishu he qizhong bijiao [Ru kiln and Southern Song dynasty official kiln: Comparison of firing techniques and types of wares]’, Gugong Bowuyuan bashiwu huadan Songdai guanyao ji guanyao zhidu guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwenji [Essays presented at the Palace Museum 85th anniversary international conference of Song dynasty official kilns and their systems], Beijing, 2012, pp. 173-174, figs 9-13). The silhouette of the present vase echoes that of the glass bottle vases from the Near East. Compare a slightly shorter 10th-11th century bottle with an everted hexagonal mouth, long ribbed neck, facetted body and nonagonal foot in the Corning Museum of Glass, attributed to the Near East, possibly made in Iran or Iraq (accession no. 54.1.107, h. 14.9 cm, fig. 1). See also a 9th-10th century facetted glass bottle in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, attributed to Iran, with a cylindrical neck and circular foot but a more everted mouth rim (accession no. 63.159.5, h. 16.5 cm).

Fig. 1. A Facetted Glass Bottle Vase, Near East, Possibly Iraq or Iran, 10th-11th century, H. 14.9 Cm, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, Accession No. 54.1.107. Image licensed by The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY (www.cmog.org), under cc by-NC-SA 4.0.

Comparing the archaeological finds in Hangzhou with the Southern Song dynasty texts, there is, to some extent, academic consensus that the site at Wuguishan, south of the former imperial city, is the Jiaotanxia kiln mentioned in the literature, and the other at Laohudong within the former palace area is the exalted Xiuneisi manufactory. However, with the multitude of shards unearthed in the neighbouring regions, the discourse about the exact locations of the kilns mentioned in the ancient text continues.

Related octagonal vases have been discovered at various sites in Hangzhou. A fragmentary ochre-glazed bottle vase of comparable size and octagonal section was excavated from Jiaotanxia kilns at Wuguishan, illustrated in Guanyao ciqi /The Guan Kilns, Beijing, 2016, pl. 91 (h. 21.8 cm, fig. 2). A shard of a pale celadon vase with a yellowish-grey body and an octagonal foot, also found at the Jiaotanxia site, is in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum, accession no. TG-2294. Deng Heying and Tang Junjie suggest that the production of octagonal vases was limited to the earlier phase of the Jiaotanxia kiln (Nan Song guanyao [Guan Ware of the Southern Song], Hangzhou, 2008, p. 73. A celadon-glazed shard with an octagonal unglazed foot of a dark brown tone was collected at Wansongling, which is believed by some to be the initial guan manufactory, neiyao or ‘inner kiln’ (Mou Baolei, Highlights of Celadon. Southern Song Official Kiln Tongjian, Hangzhou, 2017, p. 90, leftmost bottom right). Many fragments with an ochre body sandwiched by dark grey skins were found in the area, suggesting under-firing in a reduction atmosphere (p. 98).

Fig. 2. A guan ware yellow-glazed octagonal vase, Southern Song dynasty, h. 21.8 cm, excavated from Jiaotanxia kiln site, mouth and neck restored based on heirloom examples

This type of octagonal vase is extremely rare, and only a handful of extant examples are known, all with subtle differences in their silhouettes. Among them is the renowned Ataka octagonal vase – slightly shorter and enveloped in an opaque celadon glaze with faint crackles – which shares the same pedigree as the present vase; Edward T. Chow handled it merely a few years after selling the present vase. Reputedly from the Qing court, it was formerly in the collections of F.C. Harrison, Sir A. Daniel Hall, Robert C. Bruce and Ataka Eiichi, sold twice in our London rooms, 1st July 1943, lot 70 and 12th May 1953, lot 60, and once at Christie's London, 12th October 1970, lot 77, and eventually entered the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka (h. 21 cm, accession no. 00569, fig. 3)

Fig. 3. A guan ware Celadon-glazed octagonal vase, Southern Song dynasty, h. 21 cm, The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka (Gift of Sumitomo Group, The Ataka Collection), photograph by Muda Tomohiro, Accession no. 00569.

Several comparable celadon-glazed octagonal vases are preserved in the Palace Museum, Taipei. Two examples of this size and with dark-brown coloured feet are included in Yu Pei-chin, Obtaining Refined Enjoyment: The Qianlong Emperor’s Taste in Ceramics, Taipei, 2012, cat. nos 31-32, each inscribed on the base with an imperial poem composed by the Qianlong Emperor praising the items’ outstanding quality (accession nos Gu ci 16924 and Gu ci 17701, fig. 5). Despite their differences from the archaeological examples, the museum attributes them to the Southern Song to Yuan dynasties because of their stylistic reference to foreign glassware (ibid., p. 107; fig. 2). Compared to the present vase, the mouths of the Taipei vases are more flared, their silhouettes curvier, especially at the base of the necks.

Fig. 5. A guan ware celadon-glazed octagonal vase, Southern Song - Yuan dynasty, the base inscribed with an imperial poem and dated to the 37th year of the Qianlong period (1772), h. 21.5 cm, Qing Court Collection, Palace Museum, Taipei, Accession no. GU CI 17701.

Only one other vase of this form and size is in private hands. Formerly in the collection of John Henry Levy, it demonstrates similar angularity through its everted mouth and well-defined edges, covered in a milkier celadon glaze suffused with golden-brown crackles (fig. 4). It carries an extensive exhibition and publication history which goes back to the 1960s. It made its debut at auction on 8th July 1975 in our London rooms, lot 68, and had been treasured for decades in Japan before breaking the highest price record of guan ware in these rooms, 7th April 2015, lot 1.

Fig. 4. A guan ware celadon-glazed octagonal vase, Southern Song dynasty, h. 21.9 cm, formerly in the John Henry Levy Collection, sold for 113,880,000 HKD (14,600,000 USD) to the Long Museum, Shanghai, at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 7th april 2015, lot 1.

Cloaked in unctuous glazes suffused with fine crackles, guan wares have been treasured for their timeless beauty. They were copied from the very beginning by the Longquan and later Jingdezhen kilns throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Qing court even sent guan vessels in the imperial collection to the Jiangxi manufactory for replication. Indeed, this type of octagonal vase was much copied in the Qing dynasty.

A self-proclaimed collector and connoisseur of antiques, the Qianlong Emperor must have welcomed all sorts of tributes alleged to be Song guan wares, which could be challenging to verify. He praised an octagonal vase with a thicker body and more compressed lower section as an outstanding Song example and even composed a dedicated poem (Palace Museum, Taipei, accession no. Gu ci 14086; fig. 6). As various archaeological studies have become available in recent years, it has since been re-catalogued as a Qing imitation due to apparent discrepancies in form and glaze from the Song prototypes.

Fig. 6. A guan-type octagonal vase, Qing dynasty, the base inscribed with an imperial poem and dated to the 50th year of the Qianlong period (1785), h. 23.3 cm, Qing Court Collection, Palace Museum, Taipei, Accession No. GU CI 14086

Sotheby's. An Important European Collection of Chinese Ceramics - Acquired from Edward T. Chow, Hong Kong, 9 April 2024