Page 80 - 2021 March 15th Fine Chinese Paintings and Works of Art, Bonhams NYC New York

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION
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A RARE CIZHOU GREEN-GLAZED AND IRON-BLACK-BROWN- See also two illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 10, Tokyo, 1955, pls.
PAINTED AND INCISED ‘PEONY’ BALUSTER VASE 121 and 122; one illustrated in The Handbook of the Mr. and Mrs.
Northern Song-Jin Dynasty, 12th Century John D. Rockfeller 3rd Collection, The Asia Society, New York, p. 66
The globular body with high shoulders below a tall widely flaring (left), and another in The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of
trumpet neck and supported on a spreading circular foot, brilliantly the Collection, New York, 1993, p. l295 (top).
incised and painted in an iron-black-brown oxide to opposite sides
of the body with a full blossoming peony flowerhead borne on a leafy A comparable type is illustrated by Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics
scrolling stem at the mid body culminating in a large palmette-like leaf from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 3 (II), London, 2006, p. 544, no.
on the neck, the spreading foot incised with a band of feathery scrolls, 1541 (fig. 1). A meiping belonging to this select group of green-glazed
all under an apple-green crackled-glaze which pools just above the wares formerly in the George Eumorfopoulos collection and now in the
unglazed foot rim and base interior. British Museum, London, is illustrated by R.L. Hobson, The George
11 5/8in (29.5cm) high Eumorfopoulos Collection, vol. 3, London, 1926, pl. LII.

$40,000 - 60,000 In Cizhou wares of this distinctive type the motif most frequently
depicted is an upright peony flowerhead borne on a scrolling stem
spreading around the body whilst one large palmette-like leaf rises up
北宋至金 十二世紀 磁州窯綠釉黑花牡丹紋瓶 the neck towards the rim. The pale pottery body is washed in a white
slip which is then incised, oxide-painted and further incised and lastly
covered with a green lead glaze.
A number of analogous vases of this type have been published. These
include, perhaps most importantly, a fragmentary vase illustrated in Cizhou wares are more commonly famed for their carved or painted
Guantai Cizhou Yaozhi (The Cizhou Kiln Site at Guantai), Beijing, 1997, creamy-white and brown slip decoration that is carved away to reveal
pl. 70, fig. 1; another illustrated by Hasebe Gakuji, Toki Zenshu, 13, the paler body beneath, and this type too was occasionally covered
So no Jishuyo (Ceramics Anthology, 13, Song Cizhou ware), Tokyo, with a green lead glaze. It seems that both these rare green-glazed
1958, no. 46; and three illustrated by Yukato Mino, Freedom of Clay wares; the slip-carved and the incised oxide-painted type, appear to
and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz’u-chou have been exclusively made at the Guantai kilns as evidenced in the
Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D., Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1980. finds listed in Guantai Cizhou Yaozhi (The Cizhou Kiln Site at Guantai),
One in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, ibid., pp. 214-5. Beijing, 1997, col. pl. 9, fig. 2; pl. 13, fig. 3 center; pl. 23, figs. 1 and 2;
pl. 95; another in the Burrell Collection at the Camphill Museum, pl. 70, fig. 1; p. 123, fig. 52 (1 and 4); p. 127, fig. 54 (2).
Glasgow, fig 278; and one from a Japanese collection, fig. 277.
Another in the Museum Yamato Bunkakan, Nara, Japan, which is For a vase of similar form but decorated in the ubiquitous slip-
identical in height is illustrated in Mayuyama Seventy Years, Volume carved technique see Rosemary Scott, ‘Chinese Classic Wares
One, p.188, no. 557. Another of identical form but slightly smaller from a Japanese Collection: Song Ceramics from the Linyushanren
is illustrated in Catalogue of Selected Masterpieces from the Nezu Collection’, Arts of Asia, March-April 2014, pp. 97-108, fig. 24 and
Collections, Tokyo, 2001, p. 59, col. pl. 56. also illustrated Christie’s, The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics: An
Exhibition of Song Treasures from the Linyushanren Collection, Hong
An important example sold at Christie’s, New York, Masterworks of Kong, 2012, pp. 130-131, no. 52, and later sold at Christie’s, New
Ancient and Imperial China, 17 September 2008, lot 583. Another York, 22 March 2018, lot 517. See also Sotheby’s, Hong Kong, 29-30
was exhibited at Christie’s, Hong Kong , New York and London in November 2018, lot 631 for another from the Xinyangtang collection.
a travelling exhibtion in 2012-2013 and published in The Classic
Age of Chinese Ceramics, An Exhibition of Song Treasures from the
Linyushanren Collection, 2012, pp. 130-131, no. 52.

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