NORTHERN SONG-JIN DYNASTY, 12TH CENTURY

Green-glazed Cizhou vases of this shape and decoration are extremely rare. Most known examples have the same peony decoration rendered in black slip, while the current vase is carved through white slip and covered with a translucent green glaze. The only known other example also decorated with white peony motifs under a green glaze is illustrated in Mayuyama Seventy Years, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 556, registered as an Important Art Object (fig. 1).

Other green-glazed Cizhou vases decorated with peony in black slip include one in the Linyushanren Collection, exhibited in The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics: An Exhibition of Song Treasures from the Linyushanren Collection, Christie’s Hong Kong, 2012, pl. 52; one from the Museum Yamoto Bunkakan, illustrated in Mayuyama Seventy Years, op. cit., pl. 557; one illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 12, Tokyo, 1977, p. 242, fig. 237; one from the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Museum Collection, Tokyo, 1986, pl. 117; and one in the Baur Collection, Geneva, illustrated in J. Ayers, The Baur Collection, Chinese Ceramics I, Switzerland, 1968, pl. A78.

CIRAM Scientific Analysis Certificate no. 0714-OA-207R is consistent with the dating of this lot.