A 'Yue' box and cover, Five Dynasties-Northern Song dynasty. Estimate 8,000 — 12,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

of shallow circular form, the straight-sided slightly domed cover carved in relief on top with a large lotus blossom, impressed in the center with seven seeds, applied on the cover and base, inside and out and on the underside of the base with a celadon glaze of olive-green color (2). Diameter 4 1/2  in., 11.4 cm

Notes: See a related box and cover of similar size and decoration excavated in 1978 in Ningbo and in the Ningbo Tianyige Museum, illustrated in Zhongguo chutu ciqi quanji / Complete Collection of Ceramic Art Unearthed in China, Beijing, 2008, vol. 9, pl. 162; and another deeper form box and cover illustrated in Mary Tregear, Catalogue of Chinese Greenware in the Ashmolean Museum Oxford, Oxford, 1976, no. 160.

Sotheby's. Song Tradition: Early Ceramics from the Yang De Tang Collection. New York, 17 mars 2015, 11:00 AM