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Lot Essay
This waterdropper is extremely rare. At first sight the combination of a duck with a turtle inside may seem strange, however, this was in fact the perfect gift with which to pay a subtle compliment to a sophisticated scholar. These two creatures provide a rebus (visual pun). In Chinese the word for duck is pronounced ya, while one of the Chinese names for a turtle is jia yu (literally 'armored fish'). The combination of the turtle and the duck can thus be jia ya which is pronounced the same way as a phrase meaning 'elegant and refined'.
A waterdropper of the same size and design, including the small turtle inside, is in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing and illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan - Taoci juan, Taipei, 1993, no. 282, where it is dated to the Five Dynasties period. Another waterdropper of this same form, also with the turtle inside, is in the collection of the British Museum and is illustrated by S. Vainker in Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, London, 1991, p. 67, no. 48, where the author dates it to the 10th century and suggests it is of northern Chinese manufacture.
A waterdropper of the same size and design, including the small turtle inside, is in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing and illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan - Taoci juan, Taipei, 1993, no. 282, where it is dated to the Five Dynasties period. Another waterdropper of this same form, also with the turtle inside, is in the collection of the British Museum and is illustrated by S. Vainker in Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, London, 1991, p. 67, no. 48, where the author dates it to the 10th century and suggests it is of northern Chinese manufacture.