Page 44 - Metropolitan Museum Collection September 2016

806
A RARE CIZHOU-TYPE CARVED VASE

NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY, LATE 11TH-12TH CENTURY

The vase is well carved on the globular body and trumpet-form neck with a broad band of
peony scroll bearing two large blossoms framed by leafy, curving stems above a band of narrow
petals below, all in dark brown reserved on a white slip ground and covered with a clear glaze.
8Ω in. (21.4 cm.) high
$30,000-50,000

PROVENANCE

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accessioned in 1922 (Rogers Fund).

The very diffcult technique used to produce the striking design on this vase was developed at
the Cizhou kilns in the Northern Song dynasty. It involved the application of a pale slip to
the unfred stoneware vessel, followed by a dark slip. The outline of the decoration was then
incised through the dark top layer and the background area of the design was cut away to
reveal the pale slip beneath. Details, such as stamens and leaf veins, were also incised through
the dark upper layer either with a fne point or a comb-like instrument. The thin colorless
glaze could then be applied and the vessel fred.

This technique required very skillful application, since the slip layers were both relatively
soft and the decorator had to judge exactly how deep to cut in order to remove the dark slip
layer without accidentally cutting away the lower pale layer. When successfully rendered,
the technique was ideal for the depiction of dramatic large-scale foral motifs like those seen
on the current vase. Shards found at the Guantai kiln in Cixian, Hebei province, include
examples very similar to the current vase. These shards are illustrated in the comprehensive
report of the excavation of the Guantai kiln site: Guantai Cizhou yaozhi, Beijing, 1997, pl.
25-4 and col. pl. 21-2.

A similarly decorated Cizhou carved meiping from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, was sold
at Christie’s New York, 18 March 2009, lot 330.

北宋 磁州窯黑剔花牡丹紋卷口瓶

來源
紐約大都會藝術博物館，入藏於1922年 (Rogers 基金)。

Jacob S. Rogers (d. 2 July 1901) was the president of Rogers Locomotive Works of Paterson,
New Jersey. Rogers became a member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1883, but
was not a notable donor during his lifetime. Rogers appointed the Museum the residuary
legatee of his estate, and had his assets liquidated to establish an endowment fund for the
museum. The museum was not informed of this bequest in advance and learned this from
the newspaper after Rogers’ death. Aside from the Chinese art acquisitions, other notable
acquisitions from the Rogers Fund include the tomb chapel of Raemkmi and the nineteen
frescoes from the Pompeiian villa of Publius Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale.

Jacob S. Rogers, photographer
unknown. © The Metropolitan
Museum of Art.

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