A finely carved 'Dengfeng' jar and cover, Northern Song dynasty | 北宋 登封窰白地刻牡丹紋蓋罐

Japanese Private Collection.

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日本私人收藏

It is extremely rare to find a jar from the Dengfeng kilns of such crisp quality, and even rarer to find one preserved intact with its cover. The skillful articulation of the peony flowers is through the sgraffiato technique, which involved the application of a layer of white slip subsequently carved to reveal the brownish body of the piece. The present jar was produced at the Dengfeng kilns in Henan province during the early Northern Song dynasty.

The Italian term sgraffiato, literally ‘scratched’, first appeared around the late eleventh century, and was created through the application of contrasting layers of slip or glaze. On the present bottle, a layer of white slip was applied over black slip, which was later carefully incised to create decorative patterns by revealing the pristine white layer beneath, and then finally covered by a layer of clear glaze. This labor-intensive and time-consuming technique adds a sense of opulence and luxury to the stoneware.

What makes this jar so exceptional are the linear ground patterns on its surface. Large peony scrolls are a popular motif on vases decorated with the sgraffiato technique. This jar, however, is unusually elegant in the fine texturing of the negative space, which distinguishes it from typical sgraffiato wares, in which the ground framing the principal design is carved to a ubiquitous black. Here, the space between the floral scrolls is filled with fine hatching in different directions to contrast the bold peony blossoms and leaves. The fluid lines of carved decoration, together with the color scheme, are reminiscent of calligraphy and thus vessels such as the present piece would have been highly prized by literati.

Another jar with similar carving but lacking its cover is illustrated in Hsien-Ch'i Tseng and Robert Paul Dart, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 1972, cat. no. 90. See also a jar illustrated in Graces of Song Wares. Treasures from PT Collection, Beijing, 2019, pp 549-52. ‘Dengfeng’ wares at auction are rare. A Northern Song dynasty carved ‘Dengfeng’ pillow from the Yang De Tang Collection was sold in these rooms, 17th March 2015, lot 71.