A 'Yue' celadon-glazed ram-form water vessel, Western Jin dynasty

Acquired in Hong Kong in the 1990s.

Modeled as a recumbent ram, this charming piece belongs to a group of playful vessels made for the scholar’s desk that were produced in the kilns of northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu provinces. Vessels of this form have been unearthed from Three Kingdoms and Jin dynasty tombs, suggesting that they were highly treasured by their owners. Compare two similar rams in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures in the Palace Museum. Porcelain of the Jin and Tang Dynasties, Hong Kong, 1996, pls 30 and 31; one in The Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, published in The Tsui Museum of Art. Chinese Ceramics I. Neolithic to Liao., Hong Kong, 1991, pl. 58; and another from the collection of Sir Alan and Lady Barlow, now preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and illustrated in Michael Sullivan, Chinese Ceramics, Bronzes and Jades in the collection of Sir Alan and Lady Barlow, London, 1963, pl. 71a. For a ram water vessel, similarly modeled as the present lot, see one sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 5th November 1996, lot 659.