Important Chinese Art

Important Chinese Art

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 208. A RARE AMBER-GLAZED 'MUSICIANS' FLASK NORTHERN QI DYNASTY | 北齊 黃釉樂舞圖扁壺.

TANG SANCAI - THE SZE YUAN TANG COLLECTION | 思源堂舊藏唐三彩珍品

A RARE AMBER-GLAZED 'MUSICIANS' FLASK NORTHERN QI DYNASTY | 北齊 黃釉樂舞圖扁壺

Auction Closed

November 4, 07:52 PM GMT

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

TANG SANCAI - THE SZE YUAN TANG COLLECTION

思源堂舊藏唐三彩珍品

A RARE AMBER-GLAZED 'MUSICIANS' FLASK

NORTHERN QI DYNASTY

北齊 黃釉樂舞圖扁壺


modelled after a Central Asian metal shape with sloping shoulders and tapering form, moulded in relief on both sides with a pair of musicians on either side of a foliate motif, all below a small mascaron roundel flanked by two apsaras, covered overall with a light amber-coloured glaze

Height 11.7 cm, 4⅝ in.

思源堂收藏

This piece belongs to a small group of flasks made in northern China and inspired in both form and design by Western Asian pilgrim bottles. While flasks of this type are typically moulded on both sides with dancers surrounded by musicians, the present example is decorated with a human mask at the centre. This motif is discussed by Suzanne Valenstein, who suggests it originated on contemporary Khotanese earthenware, (Suzanne G. Valenstein, “Preliminary Findings on a 6th Century Earthenware Jar”, Oriental Art, vol. XLIII no. 4 (1997-8), pp 2-13).


A slightly larger flask of this type, with a dancer at the centre, was discovered at the Northern Qi (550-577) tomb of Fan Cui, at Honghetuncun, Anyang, Henan province, dated in accordance with 575, now preserved in the Henan Provincial Museum, Zhengzhou; a similar flask is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no. 2001.629; another lacking the arabesques, from the Charles B. Hoyt collection, is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 50.883; and a much larger flask in the Meiyintang collection, is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 3 (I), London, 2006, pl. 1236. See also a green-glazed flask of similar form and design, from the George Eumorfopoulos collection, now in the British Museum, London, accession no. 1936,1012.3.