Lot 34. A rare 'Longquan' celadon-glazed bamboo-neck vase, xianwenping, Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279); 24.6 cm, 9 3/4  in. Estimate 60,000 — 80,000 GBP. Lot sold 137,000 GBP. Courtesy Sotheby's.

the pear-shaped body encircled by three carved grooves above the waist, rising from a short straight foot to a tall tapering neck encircled by two bow-string bands in imitation of bamboo and a broad everted mouth, covered overall in a thick bluish-green glaze save for the footring revealing the buff body.

Note: Longquan celadon vases of this elegant form belong to the most desirable vessels made during the Longquan kilns’ best period of production, the late Southern Song dynasty. Also known as xianwen ping, vases of this type derived their form from contemporary Guan bottle vases, which were in turn inspired by archaic bronze prototypes. See for example a bronze circular bottle, hu, attributed to the Han dynasty (206 BC- AD 220), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no. 2007.133.

A vase of similar form but shallower everted rim, found among the cargo of the Sinan shipwreck which sank off the Sinan coast of Korea in 1323 on its journey to Japan, is illustrated in Relics Salvaged from the Seabed off Sinan, materials 1, Seoul, 1985, pl. 1; one excavated at a kiln site in the Longquan area, is published in Longquan qingqi yanjiu [Research on Longquan celadon], Beijing, 1989, pl. 41, fig. 1; another with a narrower rim, from the Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo, was included in the exhibition Song Ceramics, The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 1999, cat. no. 70; and a further example from the collection of Mathias Komor and the Falk collection, was sold at Christie’s New York, 16th October 2001, lot 119. See also a much smaller example, sold in our New York rooms, 30th March 2006, lot 27.