A 'CIZHOU' BROWN-GLAZED TRUNCATED MEIPING XIXIA OR YUAN DYNASTY

the globular body with short narrow knopped neck, covered overall with a lustrous dark chocolate-brown glaze, freely carved through the glaze to the light buff body with a broad band enclosing two large blossoming lotus, all below a narrow band of scrolling leaves encircling the rounded shoulder, the slightly recessed base unglazed revealling the buff-tone body

The brush-written character on the base reads si and can be translated as 'officer' indicating that the vessel may have been manufactured for an officer.

Vessels of this form, decorated in the impressive black-and-white sgraffito style, using black and white slip, belong to the finest vessels produced. Compare two related sgraffiato vessels of this size and shape illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, 1994, p. 251, pls. 454 and 455, where the author mentions another sgraffiato jar decorated with peony design from the Lingwu Kilns in Ningxia.  Pl. 455 mentioned above was also included in the exhibition L'Âge D'Or de la Céramique Chinoise VIe -XIV Siècles, Musée Cernuschi, Paris, 1999, cat.no. 61.