Lot 84. A black-glazed oil-spot bowl, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127); 13.6 cm, 5 3/8  in. Estimate 40,000 — 60,000 GBP. Courtesy Sotheby's.

the deep conical sides rising from a short straight foot to an everted rim, covered overall with a black glaze infused with silvery oil spots.

Note: The present piece boasts a highly lustrous glaze with iridescent ‘oil spot’ markings that shift from silvery-metallic tones to russet-brown when light shines through them. Bowls of this form and covered in this ‘oil spot’ glaze are unusual; compare a slightly smaller bowl, but the glaze stopping above the foot, in the Meiyintang collection, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 3 (II), London, 2006, pl. 1503; a bowl of deeper form, from the collection of Dr. Yogokawa Tamisuke, now in the Tokyo National Museum, included in Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics I, Tokyo, 1988, pl. 611; another in the Toguri Museum of Art, Tokyo, included in the exhibition Charm of Black & White Ware; Transition of Cizhou Type Wares, Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, Osaka, 2002, cat. no. 138; a fourth bowl, but the rim less flared, in the Yuegutang collection, illustrated in Regina Krahl, A Collection of Chinese Ceramics in Berlin, Berlin, 2000, pl. 182; and another from the collection of Sir A. Daniel Hall and the Malcolm collection, sold twice in these rooms, 1st July 1943, lot 17, and 29th March 1977, lot 159.