Lot 3232. A rare yellow-glazed marbled pottery tripod dish, Tang dynasty (AD 618-907); 5 ¼ in. (13.5 cm.) diam. Estimate $15,000 - $20,000. Price Realized $21,250. © Christie's Image Ltd 2015

The shallow, white and reddish-brown marbled pottery dish has an everted rim with thickened edge, is supported on three plain pottery feet, and is covered in a yellow glaze which continues over the sides to partially cover the underside, Japanese wood box.

Provenance: Collection of Fujio Koyama (1900-1975), Director of the Tokyo National Museum (inscribed on the wood box).

Note: Marbling, or jiao tai ('mixed clay'), was a popular decoration technique on ceramics of the Tang dynasty. Although formerly thought to be derived from the tixi multi-colored lacquer tradition, recent scholarship finds the inspiration to have more likely come from marbelized glasswares of the ancient Near East. Such pieces have been found in excavations as far as Afghanistan and Korea. Evidentally Tang potters of the early 8th century adapted this technique to pottery, creating the world's earliest form of marbelized ceramics. For further discussion, refer to Wu Tung, Earth Transformed: Chinese Ceramics in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2001, p. 39. A very similar tripod dish was sold at Christie's London, 3 November 2009, lot 188.

Christie's. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 15 - 16 March 2015, New York, Rockefeller Plaza