A large jar and cover, China, Sui Dynasty (581-618). H. 19,8 cm. Estimate 2000/3000 €. Lot sold 1.000 €. Photo Nagel

the jar and cover of high fired, beige earthenware is covered on the outside with a transparent, densely crackled yellowish-green tinted glaze, the inside of the body, cover and the flat bottom are left unglazed. Few very small chips to mouth in the unglazed area

Provenance: Senta Wollheim Collection, no. OA 79, bought from Lempertz, Cologne, sale 537, 8.5.1974, lot 642 (DM 8000.-)

Note: This jar and cover belong to the earliest high-fired white wares of China and represent the earliest porcelain made anywhere in the world, examples of which are rare. A similar piece, from the tomb of the official Ji Wei who was buried in AD610 near Xian in Shaanxi province, is illustrated in Finsterbusch, Zur Archaologie der Pei-Ch'i (550-577) and Sui-Zeit (581-618), 1976, pl. 49, fig. 10, and discussed in an article on Sui Dynasty porcelain by Zhi Yan in Wenwu 1977, no. 2, pp. 57f., where it is reproduced in a line drawing, fig. 1 (5). A jar of this type without a cover in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Porcelain of the Jin and Tang Dynasties, Beijing, 1996, pl. 58

NAGEL. "Asian Art". Sale 722, 06/06/2015