Page 216 - Bonhams Wen Tang Collectiont, October 2014 Hong Kong

198 Cizhou wares are most recognizable for the white slip covering the
A rare Cizhou ‘flower-scroll’ carved globular jar grey stoneware, which was painted, carved or moulded with lively and
Northern Song/Jin Dynasty bold decoration. The white slip used was produced from sedimentary
The body raised on a spreading foot, deeply carved through white kaolin, essentially the same materials used for porcelains made in the
slip around the exterior with a large flower head on a leafy stem, North of China. The use of kaolin gave the slip its characteristic stark
below a band of overlapping petals. white tone.
13cm diam.
A Cizhou engraved jar of very similar form is illustrated in Song
HK$800,000 - 1,000,000 Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, Hong Kong, 1994, pp.326-327,
US$100,000 - 130,000 no.145. The style of decoration on the present lot found popularity
in the early Northern Song period. Other examples of Cizhou wares
北宋/金 磁州窯白釉剔花罐 with very similar flower heads with narrow sharply-cut petals include:
a Cizhou ewer in the Tokyo National Museum, illustrated in Jan Wirgin,
Sung Ceramic Designs, London, 1979, pl.41a; a large Cizhou vase
in the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated in G. Hasebe, Sekai toji zenshu
- 12 - Song, Tokyo, 1977, pp.110-11, no.109; and see another
similar Cizhou ewer illustrated in Song Ceramics from the Laiyantang
Collection, 2010, p.78, no.30, where the author states that judging
from the recently published ceramic shards obtained from Song kiln
sites in Henan and Hebei Provinces, the Dangyangyu kilns in Xiuwu
County were the most prolific centre making this type.

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