Lot 261, A 'Cizhou' tiger-form pillow, Jin dynasty. Estimate $15,000 — 20,000. Photo Sotheby's.

well-modeled in the form of a recumbent tiger, freely painted with bold brown stripes on an orange slip ground, the ferocious beast with round indented ears, stippled and furrowed eyebrows centered by awangcharacter, the nostrils formed by two small air holes, its mouth pulled back revealing two sharp front fangs, the tail curling around the back haunches, the slightly concave back reserved in dark-orange slip with a bean-shaped panel depicting a recumbent white-spotted deer resting between two trees, all beneath a clear glaze, the flat gray stoneware base unglazed for firing. Length 15 1/2  in., 39.4 cm

Provenance: Sotheby's New York, 12th June 1984, lot 226. 

Notes: A number of tiger-shaped Cizhou pillows have been published, varying in the decoration on its surface, often painted with birds, flowers and animals. The painting on this piece is unusual,  rather than the more typical white ground, the concave bean-shaped section is a dark amber color. A pillow with the same overall orange-slip ground and a wang character between the eyes, but not as finely-painted, reported to have been excavated at Jiaozuo Henan and now in the Jiaozuo Museum, Henan Province is illustrated in Thousand Years Dream, Chinese Ceramic Pillows, Beijing, 2007, pp. 56-57. Another tiger-form pillow with the same palette, painted with a pair of geese, and dated to 1205 is illustrated in Kaikodo Journal, Spring 2000, fig. 4, from The Cizhou Kiln Site at Guantai, Beijing, 1997, pl. CXXV:9. Another pillow of this type was sold in our London rooms, 13th November 2003, lot 14.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 16 mars 2016, 10:00 AM