Page 38 - Christies March 15 2017 Fujita Museum

A similar vase, also with relief peony

decoration was excavated from a site to

the east of Huhehot in Inner Mongolia

(illustrated in Wenwu, 1977, vol. 5, p. 76). A

Jun ware censer in ding form, which was

excavated from the same site, was incised

with a cyclical date of the ninth month of

the jiyou year, which has been calculated by

the archaeologists as corresponding to AD

1309. A smaller vase of similar shape, but

with bow-string lines around the whole of

the neck and sprig-moulded peony scroll

only around the upper half of the body, was

salvaged from the wreck of a Chinese trading

vessel which foundered of the Sinan coast

of Korea on its way from Ningbo in China to

Kamakura in Japan in AD 1323 (illustrated in

Special Exhibition of Cultural Relics Found of

Sinan Coast, Seoul, 1977, colour plate 10). A

pair of taller vases with similar decoration to

the Fujita vase are today still preserved in the

collection of the Daitoku-ji temple in Kyoto

Fig. 1. Longquan vase, Yuan dynasty. PDF. 237. (illustrated in Daitoku-ji no meiho (大德寺の名
© Sir Percival David Collection/courtesy the Trustees of 宝), Kyoto, 1985, no. 95). A somewhat taller
The British Museum. vase with similar decorative scheme to the
Fujita vase, but with carved foral decoration
圖一 元泰定四年（1327年） 龍泉青釉刻纏枝花卉紋鳳尾尊
大維德爵士舊藏

(rather than sprig-moulded), is in the Percival

David collection, London (illustrated by R. Scott in Imperial Taste: Chinese Ceramics from the Percival

David Foundation of Chinese Art, San Francisco, 1989, p. 50-51, no. 24). (Fig. 1) This latter vase bears

an inscription, incised under the glaze around the inner lip of its mouth, which reads:

栝倉剱川流山萬安社居奉三寳弟子張進成燒造大花瓶壹雙捨入覺林院大法堂佛前永充供養祈福保安家門
吉慶者泰定四年丁卯嵗仲秋吉日謹題

‘Zhang Jincheng of the village of Wan’an at Liu mountain by the Jian river in Guacang, a humble
disciple of the Precious Trinity [of Buddhism], has made a pair of large fower vases to be placed
before the Buddha in the Great Dharma Hall at Juelin Temple, with [pledges for] eternal support and
prayers for the blessings of good fortune and peace for his family and home. Respectfully inscribed on
an auspicious day in the eighth month of dingmao, the fourth year of the Taiding period [AD 1327].’

It seems likely, in view of the dates associated with the Inner Mongolian fnd, the Sinan wreck, and the
inscribed date on the Percival David vase, that the Fujita vase dates to the period circa AD 1300-1330.

A very slightly taller vase of the same shape and with very similar decoration is in the collection of the
Art Institute of Chicago (illustrated by Y. Mino and K. R. Tsiang in Ice and Green Clouds – Traditions of
Chinese Celadon, Indianapolis, 1987, p. 201, no. 81).

The large Yuan dynasty lidded jar from the Fujita Museum is rare both for its size and the depth of
its relief-carved decoration. Such jars with lotus-leaf shaped lids were made at the Longquan kilns
from the Song dynasty, through the Yuan dynasty and into the Ming dynasty. A taller, undecorated
jar of this form was excavated in 1974 from a Yuan dynasty tomb in the Yuanyichang (園藝場) area of
Dongxi (東溪), Jianyang county (簡陽縣), Sichuan province. Although the tomb is dated to the Yuan
dynasty, the archaeologists believe that the jar dates to the Southern Song dynasty (illustrated in
Longquan Celadon – The Sichuan Museum Collection (龍泉青瓷), Macau, 1998, pp. 134-5, no. 38).
An undecorated lidded jar dating to the Yuan dynasty was excavated in 1975 at Yi’niao city 義鳥市,
Zhejiang province (illustrated by Zhu Boqian (朱伯謙) (ed.) in Celadons from Longquan Kilns (龍泉窰
青瓷), Taibei, 1998, p. 196, no. 171). A smaller Ming dynasty lidded jar of this form, with carved foral
decoration, was excavated in 1955 in Yujing village in Bazhong county, Sichuan province (illustrated
in Longquan Celadon – The Sichuan Museum Collection, op. cit., pp. 162-3, no. 55). A further Ming
dynasty jar with carved decoration including the four characters qing xiang mei jiu (清香美酒) is in the
collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing (illustrated in Celadons from Longquan Kilns, op. cit., p. 262,
no. 247).

36 IMPORTANT CHINESE ART FROM THE FUJITA MUSEUM