A 'Longquan' celadon vase, Southern Song Dynasty

6 mars 2016

A 'Longquan' celadon vase, Southern Song Dynasty

Lot 251, A 'Longquan' celadon vase, Southern Song Dynasty. Estimate 80,000 — 120,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

the pear-shaped body rising from a short tapered foot to a tall cylindrical neck and everted rim, the glaze of an even attractive bluish-green color thinning at the lip, the unglazed footrim fired to a light orange. Height 5 7/8 in., 14.8 cm

Provenance: Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Marvin Gordon, San Francisco.
J.J. Lally & Co., New York.

Literature: Robert Mowry, 'Chinese Ceramics from the Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Marvin L. Gordon', Orientations, March 2004, p. 118, fig. 5.

Note: This charming vase exemplifies the refinement of the classic Southern Song aesthetic, embodying ideals of simplicity and harmony in its unassuming yet elegant shape which perfectly complements the attractive translucent glaze. Suzanne G. Valenstein in A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, p. 99, suggests that the rapid refinement of craftsmanship at the Longquan kilns during the Southern Song dynasty is to be attributed to the court extending its patronage to kilns outside the capital city, Hangzhou, probably including kilns in Longquan.

A vase of this type is illustrated in Longquan Celadon of China, Hangzhou, 1998, pl. 92; another from the collections of Mrs Alfred Clark and Edward T. Chow, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, London, 1994, pl. 555, was sold in our London rooms, 16th December 1980, lot 299, and again in our Hong Kong rooms, 20th November 1985, lot 5; and a third vase from the Yang De Tang collection, was sold in these rooms, 17th March 2015, lot 69. Further examples include one from the Carl Kempe collection, now in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics. The World’s Great Collections, Tokyo, 1982, vol. 7, pl. 146; one from the collection of Pierre de Menasce, included in the exhibition Mostra d’Arte Cinese, Palazza Ducale, Venice, 1954, cat. no. 435, and sold in our London rooms, 7th June 2000, lot 114; and another from the collections of J.E. Woodthorpe and Mildred R. and Rafi Y. Mottahedeh, sold in our London rooms, 6th April 1954, lot 4, and again in these rooms, 8th November 1980, lot 146.

Vases of this form are also known covered overall in a crackled guan-type glaze, such as a vase, also from the collections of Mrs Alfred Clark and Edward T. Chow and illustrated in Regina Krahl, op. cit., pl. 554, sold in our London rooms, 25th March 1975, lot 63; and another, recovered at the Xikou kilns and now in the Longquan Provincial Museum, Zhejiang province, illustrated in The Complete Works of Chinese Ceramics. Song Dynasty, Shanghai, 1999, vol. 8, pl. 73.