Lot 1111. A rare sancai-glazed pottery amphora, Tang dynasty (618-907), 15¾ in. (40 cm.) high. Estimate USD 12,000 - USD 18,000. Price realised USD 47,500 © Christie's Images Ltd 2011

Elegantly potted with tapering ovoid body, slender waisted neck and a pair of curved double-strap handles applied with bosses and terminating in dragon heads that bite the dish-shaped mouth, all splash-glazed in green, amber and clear glaze that also covers the high, rounded shoulder and ends in an irregular line on the fine- grained buff body, raised on a flat foot with beveled edge, wood box. 

Provenance: Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 12-13 March 1975, lot 194. 

Note: The fine potting and glazing of this amphora are similar to that of a smaller (35.3 cm.) example illustrated in Toji Zenshu - To Sansai, vol. 25, Japan, 1961, no. 8. Others, also of smaller size, are in the Musée Guimet, Paris, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 7, Tokyo/New York/San Francisco, 1981, col. pl. 7; and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated by S. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, 1989 (rev. ed.), no. 58.  

Christie's. Magnificent Qing Monochrome Porcelains and Earlier Works of Art from the Gordon Collection, 24 March 2011, New York