A Jizhou Paper-Cut Resist-Decorated Tea Bowl. Southern Song-Yuan Dynasty, 13th-14th Century. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2012

The bowl has a slightly rounded conical body that rises from a knife-cut foot ring to a finger-grooved band at the rim, and is resist-decorated on the interior with scattered prunus blossoms reserved against the finely variegated buff and brown ground. The exterior is covered with a dark brown glaze over a brown wash that ends above the unglazed foot. 4½ in. (11.5 cm.) diam. Estimate $4,000 - $6,000

南宋/元 吉州窰剪紙貼花梅花紋盞

Provenance: Honeychurch International Antiques Ltd., Hong Kong, 2005. 

Notes: Among the daring and innovative techniques, for which the Jizhou kilns in Jiangxi province are most famous, is the technique of using paper cut-outs as stencils to create resist designs. For a discussion of the processes involved in producing these designs see R.D. Mowry, Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 36-7

Compare the very similar bowl from the Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated by J. Fontein and T. Wu in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 10, Tokyo, 1980, no. 171. 

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Part II, 13 September 2012. New York, Rockefeller Plaza