金 磁州彩繪「曲肱代枕」

modelled in the form of a young girl lying on her side with head resting on her arms and legs tucked in, the back gently flattened in a concave rectangular panel behind the head to form the top of the pillow, delicately painted in a rich dark brown and white with flower sprays on the orange-brown ground, the naturalistically modelled face with prominent features, the hair tied on each side in bunches, the unglazed base revealing the grey buff ware

A very similar pillow dated to the 16th year of the Dading period of the Jin dynasty, equivalent to AD 1176, is illustrated in Guantai Cizhou yaozhi/The Cizhou Kiln Site at Guantai, Beijing, 1997, pl. 124, fig. 4. A pillow of this type, formerly in the collection of the Denver Art Museum, Colorado, sold in our New York rooms, 8th May 1981, lot 235, was included in the exhibition Chinese Ceramic Pillows from the Yeung Wing Tak Collection, Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 1984, cat. no. 86; another sold at Christie's London, 14th June 1985, and subsequently in our London rooms, 12th November 2003, lot 18, from the Muwen Tang collection.