Lot 82. A green-glazed red pottery model of a 'watch tower', Han Dynasty; 62.2 cm high. Sold for US$5,120. © Bonhams 2025

The basin representing the moat with unglazed figures of ducks at the rim and in the well, the tower raised on four square corners with tall brick walls and pairs of protruding joinery around the top, the small doorway above the ladder connecting the rim of the basin, all supporting a roofed observation deck with four archers at the fenced corners, the green glaze with attractive iridescent tones.

Provenance: Private Collection, Greenwich, Connecticut

Note: Similar 'watch towers' can be found in major museum collections. One very closely compared to the present lot in the collection of the Portland Art Museum, Oregon, is illustrated by Jenkins and Xu, Mysterious Spirits, Strange Beasts, Early Delights: Early Chinese Art from the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Collection, Portland, 2005, pp. 136-137. Another example is illustrated by Tseng and Dart, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts: Boston, Cambridge, 1964, pl. 36.

Bonhams. CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART INCLUDING THE FRANCINE AND BERNARD WALD COLLECTION OF FINE SNUFF BOTTLES, PART I. New York, 17 March 2025