Page 86 - Sothebys Important Chinese Art London May 2018

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A RARE ‘JIZHOU’ ‘PHOENIX’ VASE
YUAN DYNASTY
the baluster body rising from a slightly spreading foot to
a waisted neck and slightly lipped rim, applied with a thick
opaque black glaze, reserved on the bu% biscuit with two pairs
of phoenix circling in the air, one of each with four long tail
feathers, the two pairs divided by clouds, the base glazed in
black below the foot
28 cm, 11 in.
PROVENANCE
Sotheby’s London, 11th December 1990, lot 220.
Jizhou vases decorated with this elaborate phoenix design are
rare, and the present piece is particularly notable for its rich
black-co% ee brown glaze that provides a striking contrast with
the two pairs of phoenix in white reserve. The four birds appear
animated with the details of the ß owing feathers and eyes
painted in swift brushwork.
A similar vase, in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard
University Art Museums, is published in Robert D. Mowry,
Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge,
Mass, 1995, pl. 103; another, illustrated in Nuno de Castro,
A Ceramica e a Porcelana Chinesas, Porto, 1992, vol. 1, pl.
th
169, was sold in these rooms, 11 December 1990, lot 220; a
th
slightly larger meiping was sold in our New York rooms, 17
March 2015, lot 181; and a smaller example, decorated with
a less elaborate design, was sold in our Hong Kong rooms,
4 December 2015, lot 265. Compare also a meiping of the
th
same shape but decorated with a blossoming prunus branch
illustrated in the Complete Collection of Treasures from the
Palace Museum. Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (II), Hong Kong,
1996, pl. 217.
Mowry, op. cit., p. 253, notes that this vase is a quintessential
Song shape which originated from silver bottles, such as the
one recovered from a Song tomb dated to 1195 in Jiangpu
county, Jiangsu province, and another recovered amongst the
cargo of the Chinese merchant ship that sank o% the coast
of Sinan, Korea, in the early 1320s. Mowry suggests that the
Sinan shipwreck silver bottle, which has straight walls, broad
and high-set shoulders, and a waisted neck with a slightly
ß aring lip, is possibly the closest in form to Jizhou vases of this
shape.
಴ £ 100,000-150,000
HK$ 1,110,000-1,660,000 US$ 141,000-212,000

ʩ Λψ㜺ලཊ਒ॷ࡜ჾ਑७ଧ
Ը๕
ࡐ౱ᘽబˢ ϋ ˜ ˚d ᇜ໮

84 SOTHEBY’S