Lot 36. A rare Korean slip-painted celadon meiping, Koryo dynasty, 12th century; 30.5 cm, 12 in. Estimate: 200,000 - 300,000 HKD. Lot sold 277,200 HKD. Courtesy Sotheby's.

the tapering body rising to high round shoulders and surmounted by a short waisted neck with galleried rim, decorated in black and white slip with three cranes flying amidst stylised clouds, all below a collar of leafy lappets, covered overall save for the footring in a sea-green glaze, Japanese wood box.

Note: This elegant meiping (maebyong in Korean) is a rare example from the early Koryo period. The delicate design of cranes and clouds was painted directly onto the body in liquid white slip before the clear green glaze was applied. This type of freehand decoration is more difficult to control than the more formal, inlaid decoration of the mature Koryo period, but is effective in endowing the design with an element of abstraction. A closely related 12th century meiping, similarly slip-decorated with a design of clouds, is in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Gift of Antoinette M. Kraushaar, no. 76.43.