A RARE FINELY PAINTED AND INCISED 'CIZHOU' 'BIRDS' JAR JIN / YUAN DYNASTY |

sturdily potted with a robust ovoid body tapering sharply from the wide rounded shoulders to the countersunk base, freely painted and incised in dark brown over the white slip on either side with a songbird perched on leafing and flowering branches, the tails and flowers further detailed with an iron wash, framed within shaped cartouches and divided by radiating petals, all between double line borders, the glaze stopping neatly at the foot ring to reveal the grayish body, the rim and interior applied with a dark-brown glaze thinning to a mahogany tone at the rim, Japanese wood box (3)

Hirano Koto-ken, Tokyo, 1974. 

A shallow flake chip apprx. 1/2 in. in diameter at the shoulder. Overall in good condition with firing imperfections including kiln adhesions particularly at the lower body, air bubbles and some discoloration at the rim. The vase leans slightly and has a slightly warped rim.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This jar is a remarkable example of a rare group of Cizhou wares with motifs both painted and incised through layers of black and white slip. Wares of this type are discussed by Yutaka Mino in the catalogue to the exhibition Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz’u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D., Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, 1980, p. 198, where he suggests that they originally evolved from sgraffiato wares. He further notes that while painted and incised wares may have originated in the Northern Song period, they became popular only in the Jin, concurrently with the decline of the sgraffiato technique.  

Jars painted with this motif are highly unusual and no other closely related example appears to have been published. A larger jar painted and incised with geese and with an additional band of scattered petals, in the Shanghai Museum, is illustrated in Shanghai Hakubutsukan [Shanghai Museum], Tokyo, 1976, pl. 101; one from the collection of Frederick Knight was sold twice in our London rooms, 15th April 1980, lot 151, and 19th June 1984, lot 181; and another unearthed at the Pengcheng kilns, Henan province, and now in the Handan Museum, is illustrated in Cizhou yao gu ci [Ancient Ceramics of Cizhou], Xi’an, 2004, pl. 124. See also a larger jar painted and incised with phoenix from the Avery Brundage Collection in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, included in the exhibition Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China, op. cit., cat. no. 91, depicted together with further phoenix jars, figs 251-254 and 257: the first recovered from a Yuan storage cellar in Liangxiang near Beijing, the second held in a collection in Japan, the third in the Musée Cernuschi, Paris, the fourth excavated from Chuzhou county in Hebei province, and the fifth in a private Japanese collection.

 

The lively and painterly rendering of the birds on this piece is comparable to painted Jizhou wares. See for example a Jizhou meiping painted with a similar design, included in the exhibition Song Yuan shidai de Jizhou yao ciqi [Song and Yuan ceramics from the Jizhou kilns], Shenzhen Museum, Shenzhen, 2012, cat. no. 52, together with a pear-shaped example, cat. no. 51; and a reconstructed pear-shaped vase recovered from the Jizhou kiln site in Ji’an, Jiangxi province, illustrated in Jizhou yao [Jizhou ware], Beijing, 2007, p. 11 (bottom right).