A small Junyao purple-splashed handled vase, Jin - Yuan dynasty | 金至元 鈞窰天藍釉紫斑雙耳連座瓶

Qin Dashu, Junyao Ceramics from the Beixuan Shuzhai Collection, Hong Kong, 2017, pl. 20.

秦大樹，《柏煊書齋．鈞窰》，香港，2017年，圖版20

This attractive piece belongs to a distinctive group of Junyao vases with an integrated pierced pedestal made in imitation of a wood stand with cabriole legs. The present example is particular notable for the splendid irregular purple splashes freely extending over the pale-blue ground.

A similar example was sold in these rooms, 1st November 1994, lot 7, and again, 5th April 2017, lot 1103. A pair of related vases of larger size with a six-fold overturned rim was sold in our London rooms, 13th December 1991, lot 139. Vases of this type are also known without handles: a slightly larger vase from the Alexander Collection, illustrated in Andre Leth, Catalogue of Selected Objects of Chinese Art in the Museum of Decorative Art Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 1995, pl. 80, was sold in our London rooms, 6th May 1931, lot 139; another, included in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition of Sung Dynasty Wares. Chün and Brown Glazes, London, 1952, cat. no. 21, was sold in our New York rooms, 4th June 1986, lot 47. A larger example with applied decoration, excavated from a Yuan site in Inner Mongolia and now in the National Museum of China, Beijing, is illustrated in The Complete Works of Chinese Ceramics, vol. 10, Shanghai, 2000, pl. 204, together with another Yuan example excavated in Beijing in 1972 and now in the Capital Museum, Beijing, pl. 205.