Lot 98. A rare black-glazed 'Oil-Spot' ewer, Northern Song-Jin dynasty (960-1234). Height 4 1/8  in., 10.5 cm. Estimate 20,000 — 30,000 USD. Lot sold 97,500 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

of lotus-bud form, the globular body supported on a short foot set with a loop handle and a short spout, the base perforated with a circular opening which connects to a tube that serves as a filler, covered overall in a lustrous black glaze suffused with a pattern of iridescent silvery 'oil-spots', stopping neatly above the base revealing the buff body. 

Note: Ewers of this form without a separate cover are referred to as lotus-bud form and were filled from the base. See a black-glazed ewer of related form discovered in the Five Dynasties excavations at Huangpu in Tongchuan, Shaanxi, illustrated in Wudai Huangbao yaozhi, Beijing, 1997, LXXX, no. 2.

This type of ewer covered with an oil-spot glaze is extremely rare and only two others appear to have been published. See the oil-spot ewer in the collection of Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, formerly in the Gustaf VI Adolf Collection, illustrated in Chugoku no toji. Temmoku, Tokyo, 1999, pl. 29; and another from the Eunice and Herbert Shatzman Collection included in the exhibition Dark Jewels: Chinese Black and Brown Ceramics from the Shatzman Collection, Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2002, cat. no. 50.  

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