Lot 44. A Cizhou 'Zhang Family' pillow, Jin-Yuan dynasty, 13th-14th century; 40.5cm x 17cm x 15.4cm. Sold for €7,680. © Bonhams 2001-2024

Of rectangular form with a concave top finely painted in brown on a creamy white slip under a clear glaze with a shaped medallion enclosing eight immortals in a garden setting, the sides similarly painted with shaped medallions enclosing a pictorial scene on the front and floral motifs on the sides and back, the base stamped with a five-character mark, 'Guxiang Zhangjia zao' (Made by the Zhang Family from Guxiang) between a lotus blossom and a lotus leaf.

Provenance: Acquired from Ben Janssen Oriental Art, London, 3 December 1998
A European private collection.

Note: The pillow is stamped with the name of the Zhang Family, a workshop specialising in the production of pillows or headrests in the late 12th and 13th century. As indicated in the inscription, the workshop was located in Guxiang or Xiangxian to the west of Anyang in Henan.

Several examples of similarly shaped, sized and decorated painted pillows or headrests are known, compare, for instance, one in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession number 2009.428, and a second example in the collection of the British Museum, London, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics. The World's Great Collections, vol. 5, Tokyo, 1981, no.118. Another pillow of this type, from the Falk Collection, illustrated by Yutaka Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz'u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D., Indianapolis, 1981, p.143, pl.59.

Pillow with landscapes featuring Daoist figures and a tiger, Zhang family workshop, Jin (1115–1234) or Yuan (1271–1368) dynasty, 13th–14th century. Stoneware with painted decoration over white slip under clear glaze (Cizhou ware). H. 15.9 cm; W. 18.7 cm; L. 43.5 cm. Purchase, Friends of Asian Art Gifts, 2009.428. © 2000–2024 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Bonhams. CHINESE ART, Paris, 12 June 2024