A VERY RARE DINGYAO SGRAFFIATO 'PEONY' VASE SONG DYNASTY |

potted with an ovoid body rising from a short splayed foot to a wide straight neck and everted rim, the body carved through the black glaze with two large peony blooms borne on undulating leafy stems, all reserved on white ground between overlapping petals and a frieze of alternating colour blocks encircling the feet and neck respectively

The vase is in good condition with just expected minute flakes to the footring, possibly original to the firing.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The Ding kilns were the predominant producers of superior white wares in the Song dynasty (960-1279), but – like most important Song kiln centres – also developed various other types of ware. Among the rarest and most sophisticated are brown-and-white sgraffiato wares, such as the present piece. While stylistically closely reminiscent of sgraffiato Cizhou wares, which were made not far away, in southern Hebei, they are much more refined in material and workmanship, being thinly potted from near-white clay. One of the most important, frequently exhibited and published vessels of this type is the meiping from the collections of Mathias Komor, Mr and Mrs Eugene Bernat, The British Rail Pension Fund and the Meiyintang collections, now on display in the Rietberg Museum, Zurich. Although rather finer in quality, it shares with the present jar its colouration and the combination of sgraffiato and painted designs: a dark brown peony scroll with carved and combed details around the main part of the body, and vertical painted brown and white stripes alternating around the neck; see Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 3, no. 1440. A related bottle of ‘truncated meiping’ form in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., also with a peony scroll and striped neck, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics. The World’s Great Collections, Tokyo, New York, and San Francisco, 1980–82, vol. 9, col. pl. 11. Upright vessels of this type, or any Ding sgraffiato vessels using this dark brown glaze, are otherwise extremely rare.

The Ding kilns mainly produced head-rests in this sgraffiato technique, but with a much paler brown glaze that provides a lesser contrast to the white ground; a fragmentary piece in the Ding county museum and a sherd, probably from the kilns sites, are illustrated in Chūgoku tōji zenshū [Complete series on Chinese ceramics], Kyoto, 1981-6, vol. 9: Tei yō [Ding yao], pls 123 and 141.

A pillow with such sgraffiato decoration and an ink inscription with a Jin dynasty (1115-1234) date on the base, equivalent to 1143, is illustrated in Zhongguo gu ciyao daxi. Zhongguo Dingyao/Series of China’s Ancient Porcelain Kiln Sites: Ding Kiln of China, Beijing, 2012, p. 351, figs 11 and 12; another dated in accordance with 1168 is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Porcelain of the Song Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1996, vol. 1, pl. 89.

Two head-rests of this paler sgraffiato type are also in the Meiyintang collection, see Krahl, op.cit., nos 1538 and 1539; and a ‘truncated meiping’ in the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, with a similar lappet border around the base, was included in the exhibition Haku to koku no kyōen/Charm of Black and White Ware: Transition of Cizhou Type Wares, Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, 2002, p. 144, no. 11.

The shape of this vase is also highly unusual in Ding ware and more closely reminiscent of some Cizhou vessels, such as two jars with brown spots on a white-slipped surface, but with a more distinctively shaped rim, one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the other in a private Japanese collection, both illustrated by Yutaka Mino in the exhibition catalogue Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China. Tz'u-chou Type Wares, 960 - 1600 AD, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, 1980, p. 112, figs 115 and 116.