Important Chinese Art
Important Chinese Art
A RARE 'YUE' FIGURE OF A RECUMBENT RAM WESTERN JIN DYNASTY, 3RD CENTURY AD | 西晉 三世紀 越窰青釉臥羊水注
Auction Closed
November 6, 06:16 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
A RARE 'YUE' FIGURE OF A RECUMBENT RAM
WESTERN JIN DYNASTY, 3RD CENTURY AD
西晉 三世紀 越窰青釉臥羊水注
the large and well-modelled animal with its front and rear legs folded beneath the body, with a curvaceous spine and robust rump, its head raised and with a pierced aperture on top, detailed with a pair of bulging eyes and curled striated horns encircling large ears, a striated bead below the slightly open mouth, all highlighted with dark iron splashes and applied overall with an olive-green glaze
Length 16.3 cm, 6⅜ in.
Stoneware figures of recumbent rams kneeling with their forelegs and their hind legs tucked-in and covered in this olive-green glaze, belong to a group of playful objects for the scholar’s desk made in kilns in northern Zhejiang and southern Jinagsu province. Numerous vessels of this type, in the form of various animals, have been recovered from tombs of the Three Kingdoms (220-265) and Western Jin dynasty (265-316), suggesting they were treasured items.
A closely related figure was included in exhibition Treasures from the Shanghai Museum, 6000 years of Chinese Art, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, 1983, cat. no. 57; another from the Barlow collection was included in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition The Ceramic Art of China, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1971, cat. no. 26; was sold in our New York rooms, 4th June 1985, lot 148; and two were sold in our Hong Kong rooms, the first, 24th/25th November 2014, lot 1025, the second, 3rd/4th December 2015, lot 270.