A RARE CIZHOU-TYPE STONEWARE FIGURE OF A DAOIST DEITY LATE MING DYNASTY

modeled seated with hands clasped as if to hold a tablet, wearing layered official's robes, the figure covered with a finely crackled yellowish-ivory glaze with the outer robe of marbleware

Acquired by the father of the present owner in the 1960s and thence by descent.

A similar cizhou-type seated figure, preserved in the British Museum, depicts the deity Wen Chang and is inscribed Wanli dingyou Chen Wencheng su' (Modeled by Chen Wencheng in the dingyou year of the Wanli era - AD 1597). Previously in the Eumorfopoulos Collection, this related figure is illustrated in R.L. Hobson, The George Eumorfopoulos Collection Catalogue of the Chinese, Corean and Persian Pottery and Porcelain, vol. 4, fig. D 346 and exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1910, Catalogue, K 37, pl. XLII.