Page 49 - Sotheby's October 3 2017 Song Ceramics
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fig. 1 fig. 2
Black lacquer foliate dish, Song dynasty, formerly collection Dingyao black-glazed russet-splashed bowl, late Northern
of Sakamoto Gorō, Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 8th October 2013, Song dynasty, excavated from Ding kiln site, Quyang
lot 141. © Cultural Relics Institute, Hebei Province
Sherds of another brown-splashed black-glazed bowl excavated with brown spots (‘Hebei Jingxingyao Hedongpo yaoqu/The
at Quyang show larger dot-shaped markings, and a fragment of a Hedongpo Section of the Jingxing Kiln Site in Hebei’, 1998 Zhongguo
conical bowl of lower proportion, closer to the present piece, but zhongyao kaogu fujue/Major Archaeological Discoveries in China
without lobes, is covered with a black glaze only (Zhongguo gu ciyao in 1998, Beijing, 2000, pp. 87-92; and Gugong Bowuyuan cang
daxi. Zhongguo Dingyao/Series of China’s Ancient Porcelain Kiln Zhongguo gudai yaozhi biaoben, op.cit., pls 222-226).
Sites: Ding Kiln of China, Beijing, 2012, pls 129 and 128). Otherwise
only a few smaller black sherds with brown splashes appear to have Related bowls, clearly made in imitation of Ding and with the foot
been published from the Ding kiln sites (Gugong Bowuyuan cang similarly wiped free of glaze, are also attributed to the Cizhou kiln
Zhongguo gudai yaozhi biaoben [Specimens from ancient Chinese group further south in Hebei province, see Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell,
kiln sites in the collection of the Palace Museum], vol. 2: Hebei juan and Partridge Feathers, op.cit., cat. nos 34 and 35; but on these, the
[Hebei volume], Beijing, 2006, pl. 208). glaze seems to be more opaque, hiding the paler body also at the rim.
Attributed to the Ding kilns has been a brown-splashed black bowl The present dish thus remains very difficult to attribute. Its body
from the Eugene Bernat collection and later in the Manno Art material clearly identifies it as a piece from a northern kiln, where at
Museum, Osaka, included in the Oriental Ceramic Society Jubilee present the Ding kilns at Quyang or a related kiln nearby, represent
Exhibition The Ceramic Art of China, London, 1971, cat. no. 71, pl. 48, the most likely origin. In the Southern Song period (1127-1279), this
and sold in our New York rooms, 7th November 1980, lot 91, and at ‘partridge feather’ glaze pattern became a very popular decoration
Christie’s Hong Kong, 28th October 2002, lot 515 and illustrated on style at the Jizhou kilns in Jiangxi province, where the surface,
the cover; and another in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard, however, was generally much less glossy. An unusually fine example
Cambridge, included in the exhibition Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and of this type is the meiping from the same collection, also included in
Partridge Feathers: Chinese Brown- and Black-glazed Ceramics, this sale, lot 15.
400-1400, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Mass.,
1996, cat. no. 16. For around four decades, if not more, this dish belonged to Mr and
Mrs Alfred Clark of Fulmer in Berkshire, England, west of London.
A similar brown-splashed black bowl with a metal mount hiding The Clarks formed their fabled collection mainly between the 1920s
the rim, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, was included in the and 1940s, before Alfred Clark’s death in 1950. Besides being active
Museum’s exhibition Qianxi nian Songdai wenwu dazhan/China at supporters of the Oriental Ceramic Society, Alfred Clark was directly
the Inception of the Second Millennium: Art and Culture of the Sung involved in the preparation of the 1935/6 exhibition in London to
Dynasty, 960-1279, Taipei, 2000, cat. no. IV-34, without attribution which he lent five dozen pieces. Asked whose collection Sir Percival
to any particular kiln. David considered most highly, Lady David in an interview in 1992
replied “I think the Clark’s”, “The collection, I would say, was one
Like Ding ware, the present dish is made from a near-white body of the finest. It was small, formed by two people with extremely
material that shines through at the rim, where the dark glaze has good taste…. They… had a little room upstairs in which they kept
drained to a transparent layer. Although the above pieces seem their Song pieces in showcases around the walls …” (Anthony Lin
to be similar in material, they generally show a foot that is more Hua-Tien, ‘An Interview with Lady David’, Orientations April 1992,
neatly wiped free of glaze. No other major kiln centre is recorded pp. 56-63). The following decades the dish spent in no less elated
to have created such wares but, like with most important Song company, in the fabled collection of the Idemitsu Museum of Arts,
manufactories, various kilns located around the type site – in this Tokyo, before entering the choice assembly of Song ceramics
case Quyang – produced very similar wares, here, for example, formed by the Portuguese collector Francisco Capelo.
the Jingxing kilns further south in Hebei. They equally made mainly
‘Ding’ white wares, but also a small number of black pieces, some
SONG — IMPORTANT CHINESE CERAMICS FROM THE LE CONG TANG COLLECTION | 47
