Lot 234. A rare sancai-glazed pottery tall ovoid jar,Tang dynasty (618-907); 10 3/8 in. (27 cm.) high. Estimate USD 30,000 - USD 50,000. Price realised USD 30,000. © Christie's Image Ltd 2008  

Of tall, tapering ovoid form, covered in a splashed glaze of amber, green and cream that continues over the edge of the inverted mouth rim and falls in an attractive, well-controlled pattern down the sides to end in an irregular line on the lower body above the flat base exposing the pale buff body. 

Provenance: Collection of Winifred Gray Whitman, M.D., Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Parke Bernet, Inc., New York, 29-30 May 1973, lot 259.

Note: The ovoid shape of this jar, with the high shoulder rounding upwards to surround the mouth is very unusual in Tang pottery wares. Most glazed pottery jars of Tang date are surmounted by a neck and are of more globular shape. Another example of this shape with very similar splashed glaze, but of smaller size (8½ in.), in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, is ilustrated by He Li, Chinese Ceramics: A New Comprehensive Survey, New York, 1996, p. 96, no. 161. The author notes, p. 122, that two other neckless jars of ovoid shape have been found in Shaanxi and Henan provinces, and are published in Wenwu Ziliao Congkan, 1982:2, p. 140 and Kaogu yu Wenwu, 1984:1, pl. 7.3, where they are described as "olive-shaped".