Page 103 - Sotheby's October 3 2017 Song Ceramics

T he distinctive style of this charming vase, with its freely
painted designs in black on white and with details incised and
combed through the black down to the white slip, is characteristic
of the Cizhou type site at Guantai in Ci county, Hebei province.
Although so-called ‘Cizhou’ wares with black painted designs on
a white ground became so popular from the Jin dynasty (1115-
1234) onwards that they were made by many different kilns of
north China, other manufactories did not develop a style nearly as
accomplished. The swiftly drawn black motifs immediately call to
mind ink paintings, and the white combed details evoke the ‘flying
white’ method of brushwork much used in calligraphy, created by
a brush that runs out of ink, whose hairs separate and cause white
streaks to appear in a black stroke.

Many similarly decorated vessels and fragments have been
recovered from the Guantai kiln site, see Guantai Cizhou yaozhi/The
Cizhou Kiln Site at Guantai, Beijing, 1997, pls XIII, no. 3 (centre) for a
particularly close fragment, and others col. pls IX, no. 2 and XI, no.
1 right; and pl. XXIII, nos 1 and 2, and XXVIII, no. 4; and pp. 123-129,
figs 52, 53 and 56; for vases of related form see pl. XXII, no. 6 and
p. 123, fig. 52.

A vase of very similar form and design in the Tokyo National
Museum is included in the Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National
Museum. Chinese Ceramics I, Tokyo, 1988, no. 567, together with
one decorated with lotus bouquets and butterflies, no. 566; a
similar vase with a differently shaped rim, in the Kyusei Hakone Art
Museum, Hakone, was included in the exhibition Freedom of Clay
and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China, Indianapolis
Museum of Art, Indianapolis, 1980, cat. no. 87 and illustrated on the
cover; one without butterflies in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas
City, ibid., cat. no. 88; another without butterflies in the Idemitsu
Museum of Arts, Tokyo, is illustrated in Idemitsu Bijutsukan zōhin
zuroku. Chūgoku tōji/Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection,
Tokyo, 1987, pl. 512; and examples with and without butterflies were
sold at Christie’s New York, 19th September 1996, lot 254, and 23rd
March 1995, lot 348, the latter again in our New York rooms, 21st
September 2006, lot 97. Of the related examples, it is important
to note not only the similarities but also the subtle differences
that denote the individuality of each piece, such as the quality of
the carving, the proportions of the blossoms and leaves and the
rendering of the butterflies.

SONG — IMPORTANT CHINESE CERAMICS FROM THE LE CONG TANG COLLECTION | 101