A RARE CARVED 'YAOZHOU' CELADON WINE BOTTLE NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY, 11TH/ 12TH CENTURY

of elegant, slender pear shape with a narrow, trumpet-shaped neck, resting on a low, neatly cut foot, the body carved and combed with a fanciful flower scroll, circling the vase in an undulating movement, its four trefoil blooms alternating on both sides to appear upright or pending and the space between evenly filled with foliage, and the neck incised with a broad band of upright and pendant pointed petals enclosed between double lines, all covered with an olive-green glaze that pools to a deeper tone in the recessed areas, thus emphasizing the design, base and footring are unglazed, revealing a light grey ware, and the inside of the neck shows strong ribs from turning



in Japanese padded purple silk cloth, ribbon-tied paulownia-wood box and cover, and brown cotton furoshiki with inscribed wooden tag



 

Mayuyama & Co. Ltd, Tokyo.

Sō ji meihin ten/Exhibition of Sung Ceramics, The Japan Ceramic Society Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, Takashimaya Nihonbashi, Tokyo, 1955, cat. no. 11.

Chūgoku Sō Gen bijutsu ten/Chinese Arts of the Sung and Yuan Periods, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 1961, cat. no. 168.

Chūgoku ko tōji. Tō Sō meiji ten [Ancient Chinese ceramics: Exhibition of important Tang and Song ceramics], Shirokiya Department Store, Nihonbashi, Tokyo, 1964, cat. no. 107.

Sō Gen no bijutsu [The art of Song and Yuan], Osaka Municipal Art Museum, Osaka, 1978, cat. no. 1-32.

Yōshuyō/The Masterpieces of Yaozhou Ware, Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 1997, cat. no. 75.

 

Chūgoku ko tōji [Ancient Chinese ceramics], Tokyo, 1971, vol. 1, pl. 79.

Ryūsen Shūhō/Mayuyama, Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, vol. I, pl. 342.

 

This rare vase has a restoration to a break at the base of the neck and a restored 3cm., wide crescent-shaped chip to the rim, a minor vertical 1.5cm., long hairline glaze crack to the interior of the neck, and a 2cm., long hairline glaze crack to the body. It should be noted that the glaze is of a slightly more olive tone than the catalogue illustration would suggest.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This elegant slender pear-shaped form with tall, narrow neck is an extremely rare Northern Song shape, known also from 'Jun', 'Ding' and northern black ware kilns, but in equally small numbers. The Yaozhou potters' remarkable ability to rapidly sketch superbly laid-out, graphic designs with a carving tool, is as beautifully exemplified by this bottle, as by the dish, lot 10.

Upright shapes of any kind are very rare among the large-scale production of the main Yaozhou kilns at Huangpu near Tongchuan in Shaanxi province. At the kiln site, where some 1,500 celadon styles have been identified, only fifty belonged to vases of any kind, of which only two were of this yuhuchunping shape. These two bottles from the Yaozhou kiln site, 22 cm and 20.9 cm high, respectively, are illustrated in Songdai Yaozhou yaozhi/The Yaozhou Kiln Site of the Song Period, Beijing, 1998, p. 292, fig. 148: 1 and 2, col. pl. 8, fig. 2 and pl. 77, fig. 4, the larger one probably illustrated again in Yaozhou yao/Yaozhou Kiln, Xi'an, 1992 (unnumbered plate). Both these bottles have similar designs, but the latter, smaller bottle shows very similar floral scrolls, whereas the former, larger one is carved with a scroll with two trefoil blooms alternating with two multi-petal ones. In a chart tracing the development of forms, ibid., p. 599, this type of bottle has been placed into the late (Northern) Song period.

A similar larger bottle, excavated at Huachi county, Gansu, and now in the Gansu Qingyang Region Museum is published as an 'excellent example of Yaozhou ware' in Zhongguo taoci quanji [Complete series on Chinese ceramics], Shanghai, 1999-2000, vol. 7, pl. 126 ; one from the Calmann collection was included in the exhibition The Arts of the Sung Dynasty, Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1960, cat. no. 141; another larger bottle with the flower scroll extending up to the rim in the MOA Museum of Art, Atami, Japan, is illustrated in Sekai tōji zenshū/Ceramic Art of the World, vol.12: Sō/Sung Dynasty, Tokyo, 1977, pl. 49 ; and one with cut-down neck was offered in our New York rooms 30th March 2006, lot 40.