An extremely rare sancai-glazed 'peony' meiping, Jin dynasty | 金 三彩牡丹紋梅瓶

Galerie 41, Monaco, circa. 2005.

Galerie 41，摩納哥，約2005年

This vase is an extremely rare example of a meiping decorated in the sancai technique. The colourful sancai glaze has its root in the Tang dynasty (618-907) and continued to be admired in later periods such as the Liao (907-1125), Song (960-1279) and Jin (1115-1234) dynasties. It is very rare to find a vase, and more generally pieces of large size, decorated in this technique which is more commonly found on small dishes. A sancai-glazed, Cizhou-type meiping, but of a more slender form and incised with a dragon in pursuit of a ‘flaming pearl’, attributed to the Jin (1115-1234)/Yuan (1279-1368) dynasty and preserved in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, was included in the Museum’s exhibition Sancai, Three-color glazed Ware. Treasures of the Silk Road, Tokyo, 2019, cat. no. 121.

Compare also a sancai-glazed pottery pillow excavated from a Jin tomb dated in accordance with AD1265 at Chixicun, Qujiang, near Xi’an, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Yutaka Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz'u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D., Indianapolis, 1980, p. 228, fig. 299. 

Dishes of that period and decorated in this technique include a 'fish' dish sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 30th May 2019, lot 5, from the Tianminlou collection.