Page 171 - Christie's Chinese Works of Art March 24 and 25th, 2022 NYC

Jun wares were produced at various kiln sites in Henan province and two yuhuchunping became fashionable containers for wine. In a mural found
of the main centers of production were in the modern-day cities of Yuzhou in a tomb in Yuquancun, Shanxi, dated to Dading ninth year of the Jin
and Ruzhou. Jun has been classified by later connoisseurs as one of the dynasty (1169), a banquet scene is depicted, in which an attendant is shown
‘Five Great Wares of the Song Dynasty’ and is celebrated for its bold forms, carrying a yuhuchunping wrapped in a towel, suggesting warm wine is
sophisticated glazes and innovative use of color. The dramatic use of purple contained within.
and red decoration beginning around the end of the 11th century, is one of
the major innovations of the Jun kilns. Purple splashes, like those seen on the In his discussion of a purple-splashed Jun vase sold at Christie’s Hong Kong
present vase, were produced by the addition of copper oxide to the surface of November 2017, lot 2905, Qin Dashu of Peking University cites a similar Jun
the unfired glaze. In areas where the concentration of copper is high enough vase, but packing the purple splashes, excavated from an early a Jin-period
for it to re-oxidize superficially on cooling, the color sometimes turns green. tomb in Jinshanjin, Beijing.
In the 2001 excavation of the Liujiamen Jun ware kiln site in Shenhou, The Percival David and and Jinshanjin tomb vases share several
Yuzhou city, Jun ware shErds decorated with large red and purple areas were commonalities, including a small mouth measuring about one third of that
found in the late Northern Song strata. See ‘Liujiamen junyao fajue jianbao’ of the body; a long, slightly flared neck which tapers towards the middle of
(Brief of the Excavation of Jun Ware at Liujiamen), Wenwu (Cultural Relics), the vase, and an elegant pear-shaped body. Towards the mid-late Jin to early
2003, no. 11, fig. 13 and 19. Yuan period, this form experienced a transformation- the mouth became
more flared and the neck became shorter. This change of form is even more
A similar Jun vase is in the Percival David Collection and illustrated by R. prominent on Yuan-dynasty pieces, such as the Jun yuhuchunping excavated
Krahl and J. Harrison-Hall, Chinese Ceramics: Highlights of the Sir Percival from the tomb of Feng Daozhen, dating to Zhiyuan second year (1265).
David Collection, 2009, London, pp. 36-7, no. 12, PDF 92. The authors note
that Northern Song tomb murals show bottles of this shape being used The result of Shanghai Museum thermoluminescence test no. 036 is
to display a single flower stem. Later during the Jin and Yuan periods, consistent with the dating of this lot.

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