Page 14 - Nov 2019 Hong Kong SOtheby's Chinese Art

□ 301 SOLD WITHOUT RESERVE

PROPERTY FROM AN OLD ASIAN FAMILY COLLECTION 唐 三彩蓮紋三足盤
A SANCAI ‘LOTUS’ TRIPOD DISH
TANG DYNASTY 展覽：
吉賓金藝術和考古博物館，杜倫（標籤）
with rounded sides supported on three legs and an everted
rim, impressed at the centre with a large stylized lotus, all in
green, chestnut and straw glaze and reserved on a dappled
ground
22.9 cm, 9 in.
EXHIBITED
Gulbenkian Museum of Oriental Art and Archaeology,
Durham (label).
HK$ 40,000-60,000
US$ 5,100-7,700

This flamboyant and brilliantly coloured tripod dish
encapsulates the opulence of the Chinese court in the first
half of the Tang dynasty. The luxuriant lotus flowers embody
the spirit of Buddhism, so popular at the time.
A similar tripod dish, excavated at Luoyang, is illustrated
in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan: Taoci juan [Gems of
China’s cultural relics, ceramics section], Taipei, 1993, p.
130, fig. 452. See also an example from the Arthur M. Sackler
collection, offered in our New York rooms, 19th September
2002, lot 59. Compare also sancai tripod dishes of the same
form but differing designs, such as one decorated with
geese in the Tokyo National Museum Collection, illustrated
in Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum- Chinese
Ceramics, Tokyo, 1965, pl. 100, and another sold at Christie’s
Hong Kong, 1st June 2016, lot 3105. A Tang sancai basin
with similar luxuriant decoration of a central stylised lotus
encircled by star-shaped petals, from the collections of Mr
and Mrs Eugene Bernat, Dr Ip Yee and T.Y. Chao, was sold in
these rooms, 29th November 2018, lot 309.

12 SOTHEBY ’S CHINESE ART