Lot 704. A painted 'Cizhou' jar, Song-Jin dynasty (960-1234). Height 5 5/8  in., 14.3 cm. Estimate 30,000 — 50,000 USD. Lot Sold 27,500 USD. © Sotheby's.

well-potted, of slightly compressed globular form rising from a short spreading foot, the body deftly painted on the exterior with a wide, continuous band of interlaced 'cash' symbols in dark brown slip against an ivory-white ground, all beneath a lustrous transparent glaze stopping short of the base revealing the buff-colored stoneware body, the interior a plain creamy-white.

Provenance: Collection of Mrs. Potter Palmer (1849-1918) and thence by descent.
Gifted to the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago by Bertha Palmer Thorne (1911-1974) in 1973 (acc. no. 1973. 825).

Literature: Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz'u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D., Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, 1980, p. 152, fig. 173.

Note: Usually painted with floral motifs, examples decorated with similar 'cash' patterns are exceptionally rare. An incised jar of the same form and decoration but with the design in white on a dark brown ground, from the Linyushanren Collection, is illustrated in several publications including Special Exhibition, Charm of Black & White Ware; Transition of Cizhou Type Wares, The Osaka Municipal Art Museum, Osaka, 2002, cat. no. 47, and was sold at Christie's New York, 22nd March 2018, lot 508.  For a vessel of the same form with dark brown painted floral decoration, see an example excavated at the Guantai kiln, Hebei, illustrated in Guantai Cizhou yaozhi [The Cizhou Kiln Site at Guantai], Beijing, 1997, pl. XIV, no. 2.