A well-painted dark grey pottery cocoon jar, Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). © Christie's Image 2003

The body painted in shades of salmon pink, pale gray-green, dark red and white with bands of decoration, the wide bands decorated with scrolls, the narrow bands with geometric patterns, with linear bands encircling the shallow pedestal foot, the base of the short neck and the faceted, everted mouth rim - 13in. (33cm.) long - Lot 196. Estimate $3,000 - $4,000. Price Realized $4,183 

Provenance: The Hardy Collection of Early Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art from the Sze Yuan Tang, Christie's, New York, 21 September 1995, lot 23. 

Notes: A jar of this type excavated in Xinxiangxian, Henan province is illustrated in Historical Relics Unearthed in New China, Beijing, 1972, pl. 87. Compare a jar with very similar decoration illustrated by Frances Klapthor, Chinese Ceramics, The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1993, p. 4; and another included in the exhibition, Spirit of Han, Ceramics for the After-Life, Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, Singapore, 1991, no. 17.

Similar examples have sold in these rooms, 2 December 1986, lot 24 and another from the Scheinman Collection, 23 March 1995, lot 21.

CHRISTIE'S. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 18 September 2003, New York, Rockefeller Plaza