A Cizhou sgraffiato 'lotus' vase, Yuhuchun ping Song/Jin dynasty | 宋/金 磁州窰白釉劃花卉紋玉壺春瓶

This elegant vase is notable for its bold and fluidly carved design of lotus leaves and blooms, separated in different decorative bands. Vessels carved in white slip against a buff-coloured ground are discussed by Yutaka Mino in the catalogue to the exhibition Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, 1980, p. 96, where he notes that wares of this type were produced from the 11th through the 14th century.

A vase of this type but carved with a large floral band on the body, from the Yangdetang collection, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 2nd October 2017, lot 77; and two smaller examples sold in our New York rooms, the first, 17th/18th September 2013, lot 80, and the second, 21st/22nd September 2005, lot 32.

See also yuhuchun vases with similar designs in black slip against a white ground, such as a smaller vase with two bands of leafy scrolls, in the Saint Louis Art Museum, illustrated in Robert D. Mowry, Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, 1995, pl. 68; and one of similar proportions with a large band of lotus flowers and leaves, from the Hong Rui Tang collection, sold in these rooms, 12th December 1989, lot 250.