A Longquan celadon 'bamboo-neck' vase Southern Song dynasty | 南宋 龍泉窰青釉弦紋盤口瓶

Exquisitely potted and glazed overall in an attractive luminous light green glaze, this vase represents one of the masterpieces of the Longquan kilns produced during the Southern Song period. Its elegant silhouette, with a tall slender neck and compressed globular body displays the aesthetic that prevailed at its time. The drastic political shift during the early Song dynasty from a society ruled by the hereditary aristocracy to one governed by a central bureaucracy of highly educated scholar-officials had a major impact on the arts of the period. Furthermore, the resulting rise of Neo-Confucian ideals led to an increased interest in antiquities and a revival of archaic jade and bronze forms that Song potters adapted into their repertoire. This vase is a fine example of this trend as the thinly potted body is covered in a thick glaze reminiscent of luminous jade while its unassuming form finds its origins in bronze vases of the Han dynasty, such as an example cast with raised ribs, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no. 2007.133 (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/73673). Such superb examples follow the fabled guan (official) wares made in Hangzhou, suggesting that the finest Longquan pieces may have been produced as tribute wares.

A closely related vase in the Nezu Institute of Fine Arts, Tokyo, was included in the exhibition Song Ceramics, The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 1999, cat. no. 70; one from the collection of Sir Percival David, now in the British Museum, London (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_PDF-202), is published in Basil Gray, Sung Porcelain & Stoneware, London, 1984, pl. 137; another modelled with a more slender neck, in the Palace Museum, Beijing (https://www.dpm.org.cn/collection/ceramic/226794.html), is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (II), Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 103; and a smaller example was sold twice in our New York rooms, 30th March 2006, lot 27, and 23rd March 2011, lot 547 (https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2011/harmony-of-form-serenity-of-color-a-private-european-collection-of-39song39-ceramics-n08736/lot.547.html).

See also a similar vase excavated at the kiln site in the Longquan area, published in Longquan qingci yanjiu [Research on Longquan celadon], Beijing, 1989, pl. 41, fig. 1; another found among the cargo of the Sinan shipwreck, which sank off the Sinan coast of Korea in 1323 on its journey to Japan, illustrated in Relics Salvaged from the Seabed off Sinan, materials 1, Seoul, 1985, pl. 1; and a further vase, recovered in Suining, Sichuan province, published in Celadons from Longquan, Taipei, 1998, pl. 114.