A 'Longquan' celadon 'Peony' vase, Yuan dynasty. Estimate 20,000 — 30,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

of baluster form, the ovoid body with an elegant peony scroll in applied relief comprising four symmetrically arranged blooms and four leaves issuing from the same curvilinear stem, rising to a tall horizontally-ribbed waisted neck, above a band of crisply carved upright lotus petals in relief encircling the base, covered overall in a semi-translucent bluish-green glaze, the foot ring unglazed for firing, Japanese wood box. Height 10 in., 25.3 cm

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 25th April 2004, lot 282.

Notes: A Longquan vase of a the same design and size, recovered form a shipwreck off the Korean coast in 1323 AD, is illustrated in Special Exhibition of Cultural Relics Found off Sinan Coast, National Museum of Korea, 1977, pls. 10 and 23. Another vase of the same form and decoration in the collection of the University of Malaya is illustrated in Chinese Celadons and Other Related Wares in Southeast Asia, Southeast Asian Ceramics Society. Singapore, 1979, p. 192, no. 153, pl. 117. A vase of the same form and decoration in the Hagi Uragami Museum, Yamaguchi is illustrated in Longquan Ware: Chinese Celadon Beloved of the Japanese, Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum, Seto, 2012, p. 42, no. 30. Other forms were made with similar peony scrolls include two double gourd vases, an ovoid jar, and two cut down baluster jars with applied decoration on the neck and two baluster jars with incised rather than applied flowers scrolls all in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul and illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, vol. 1., London, 1986, pp.287-289, nos, 202-207. Compare also a vase similar to the present example was sold in our London rooms 15th May 2013, lot 44.

Sotheby's. Chinese Art through the Eye of Sakamoto Gor – Ceramics, New York, 17 mars 2015, 10:00 AM