Lot 75. A rare 'Longquan' celadon vase, cong, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279); 25.8 cm, 10 1/8  in. Estimate 40,000 — 60,000 GBP. Lot sold 150,000 GBP. Courtesy Sotheby's 2018. 

modelled after an archaic jade cong, each long edge of the square-sectioned body with eight raised horizontal bands within a raised rectangular frame, all supported on a short foot and surmounted by a gently tapered neck, covered overall save for the footring with a lustrous celadon glaze draining to pale bluish-white at the raised edges and pooling to sea-green at the recessed areas.

Note: Celadon vases of this form imitate archaic ritual jade objects in shape and colour and represent one of the most characteristic types of Song ceramics. The form derives from jade cong, which are not shaped as containers but as open tubes, and are known particularly from the Neolithic Liangzhu culture. A fine example from the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, was included in the exhibition Gems of Liangzhu Culture, Hong Kong Museum of History, Hong Kong, 1992, cat. no. 57.

Several cong vases can be seen in famous collections throughout the world; one in the Shanghai Museum is illustrated in Longquan qingci [Celadon of Longquan], Beijing, 1966, pl. 15; one is published in the Illustrated Catalogue of Sung Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum. Lung-ch'uan Ware, Ko Ware and Other Wares, Tokyo, 1974, pls 8 and 9; another from the Eumorfopoulus Collection and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is included in John Ayers, Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1980, pl. 124; and a fourth example from the Oppenheim Collection and now in the British Museum, London, is published in Jessica Rawson, ed., The British Museum Book of Chinese Art, London, 1992, pl. 8 left.