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21 novembre 2024

A Cizhou white-glazed sgraffiato 'peony' jar, Northern Song dynasty

A Cizhou white-glazed sgraffiato 'peony' jar, Northern Song dynasty
A Cizhou white-glazed sgraffiato 'peony' jar, Northern Song dynasty

Lot 841. A Cizhou white-glazed sgraffiato 'peony' jar, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127); h. 21cm. Lot Sold 480,000 HKD (Estimate 400,000 - 800,000 HKD). © Sotheby's

 

sturdily potted with an ovoid body surmounted by a waisted neck with a galleried rim, the exterior applied with a white slip, skilfully carved through the white slip to the buff-coloured body with four quatrefoil panels enclosing peony blooms borne on curling leafy scrolls, between two bands of petal lappets encircling the upper shoulder and foot, all beneath a translucent milky glaze.

Provenance: The Canton Collection, Hong Kong, and thence by family descent.

Note: The present jar, or tuluping, derives its beauty from the sgraffiato design of peony panels, skilfully carved through the ivory-white slip coating to the light beige-brown body. The term Cizhou tends to be freely used for various kilns using slip designs, distributed particularly over Hebei and Henan, the most important being the Cizhou-type site at Guantai in Hebei. The Guantai kilns created not only a wide variety of decorative styles, but are particularly renowned for their masterful yet free manner of execution, with the potters wielding the carving knife, and later the brush, with a spontaneity like that displayed by the literati painters of the time in their ink paintings.

A closely related jar of this form and decoration is included in Special Exhibition. Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 1994, cat. no. 194. Compare two examples excavated from Guantai: a tuluping-form jar, but carved with a continuous peony scroll, illustrated in The Cizhou Kiln Site at Guantai, Beijing, 1997, pl. XXII:6; and a pillow similarly decorated with a peony panel design included in Complete Collection of Ceramic Art Unearthed in China, Beijing, 2008, vol. 3, pl. 138, where the author suggests a Northern Song attribution.

 

Sotheby's. Power & Culture – Heirlooms from the Poon Family Collection, Hong Kong, 16 October 2024

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