Lot 309. A rare miniature copper-red vase, meiping, Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368); 9.5cm high. Sold for £2,304. © Bonhams 2023

The body well-potted with rounded shoulder and a tapering baluster body on a gently flaring foot, decorated with branches of bamboo under a band of classic scrolls encircling the neck, covered in a soft, white glaze displaying a bluish tinge save from the foot and base which are burnt orange. 

Note: Notable for the freely-applied strokes of copper on a bluish-tinged glaze, this vessel would have been made at Jingdezhen during the Yuan dynasty, when potters began experimenting with copper pigments on qingbai-type glazes; see J.M.Addis, Chinese Porcelain from the Addis Collection. Twenty-two Pieces of Chingtechen Porcelain Presented to the British Museum, London, 1979, pp.9-10.

Miniature vessels painted in copper-red are rare. The division of the ornamentation into distinct horizontal bands, however, is typical of the period; see a copper-red pear-shaped vase, Yuan dynasty, displaying a similar division into two main decorative registers separated by double horizontal bands, illustrated by J.Harrison-Hall, Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, no.1:17.

Compare with a related copper-red jar, Yuan dynasty, decorated with chrysanthemum below a similar band of classic scrolls, which was sold at Christie's New York, 17 March 2017, lot 1167.

Bonhams. FINE CHINESE ART, London, 2 November 2023