Page 233 - Sotheby's Asia Week March 2024 Chinee Art

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A QINGBAI OCTAGONAL EWER AND COVER, 北宋 青白釉八方連蓋執壺 A LARGE UNDERGLAZE-RED VASE 元 釉裏紅纏枝花卉紋玉壺春瓶
NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY (YUHUCHUNPING), YUAN DYNASTY
Japanese inscribed wood box (4) 來源： Japanese wood box (3) 來源：
Height 6⅝ in., 16.8 cm Height 11¼ in., 28.5 cm
Kashogama 家族收藏，京都，約1960年代 日本私人收藏

PROVENANCE PROVENANCE
Kashogama Family Collection, Kyoto, circa 1960s. Japanese Private Collection.
Qingbai-glazed ewers were popular among the gentry of the The present vase has been preserved in exceptional
Northern Song period. The present piece is notable for its condition, and is a particularly striking and successful
octagonal form and well preserved cover. Numerous contem- example of its type, with rich bold splashes of copper red.
porary paintings depict ewers of this type, being used to serve Vases of this type were made at Jingdezhen during the
wine; see for example three related ceramic ewers and their Yuan dynasty when potters began experimenting with
matching bowls portrayed in the hanging scroll Literary Gath- copper pigments on qingbai-type glazes. J.M. Addis in
ering, attributed to the Huizong Emperor (r. 1101-1125), in the Chinese Porcelain from the Addis Collection. Twenty-two
National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in the catalogue Pieces of Chingtechen Porcelain Presented to the British
to the Museum’s exhibition Precious as the Morning Star, Museum, London, 1979, pp 9-10, discusses the experimental
Taipei, 2016, p. 41. techniques of the Yuan dynasty.
Two qingbai ewers with their bowls were excavated in Anhui A vase of this shape and decorated with similar splashes
province, one unearthed from the tomb of Wu Zhengchen and is illustrated in Chen Yongzhi, Porcelain Unearthed from
his wife in Susong county, Anhui province, datable to the sec- Jininglu Ancient City Site in Inner Mongolia, Beijing, 2004,
ond year of the Yuanyou period (1087), illustrated in Histori- pl. 41. See also a closely related example excavated at
cal Relics Unearthed in New China, Beijing, 1972, pl. 175; the Ongniod, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia in 1978, now preserved
other, recovered from a tomb dated in accordance with 1086, at Ongniod Ancient Art Museum; and another example was
published in Sekai tōji zenshū/ Ceramic Art of the World, vol. included in the Exhibition of Jingdezhen Wares. The Yuan
12, Tokyo, 1977, pl. 152. Evolution, Oriental Ceramics Society, London, 1984, cat.
no. 146. Compare also a very similar vase in the Idemitsu
Another closely related Qingbai ewer of octagonal form, but Museum of Arts, Tokyo, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in
lacking a cover in the Seikado Bunko, Tokyo, was included in the the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, pl. 147.
exhibition Twin Peaks: The Sublime Art of Song Ceramics and the
Sophistication of Official Kiln of Qing, Tokyo, 2023, cat. no. 31. ⊖ $ 70,000-90,000
The signature on the box details how the ewer was previously
in the Kashogama family collection, who have been producing
high quality pottery for three generations since the establish-
ment of a kiln at Gojozaka, Kyoto, in 1914.
⊖ $ 50,000-70,000

462 SOTHEBY’S COMPLETE CATALOGUING AVAILABLE AT SOTHEBYS.COM/N11410 463