A RARE LATE NEOLITHIC PAINTED GRAY POTTERY TRIPOD VESSEL, LI

Details

A RARE LATE NEOLITHIC PAINTED GRAY POTTERY TRIPOD VESSEL, LI
INNER MONGOLIA, XIAJIADIAN CULTURE, CIRCA 1500 B.C.

The tall, slightly waisted body decorated on the exterior with a wide band of asymmetrical hooked scrolls reserved in pale orange pigment on the dark gray pottery which forms an outline against the white pigment ground, all within narrow, pale orange borders at the top of the tapering, tripod supports and below the flared mouth with thick, rounded rim, the interior of the rim encircled by a band of similar scrolls (small, shallow rim chip)
10 3/8in. (26.4cm.) high, box

Lot Essay

Pottery vessels painted with similar patterns have been excavated at prehistoric sites in Inner Mongolia considered to be of the early Xiajiadian cultural phase

Similar vessels painted with curvilinear designs in white, like those on the present lot, but on a red ground, were found in burials in the area of Chifeng, Inner Mongolia. See Zhongguo wenwu jinghua (Gems of China's Cultural Relics), Wenwu Press, Beijing, 1990, fig. 28; Kaogu 1992:4, pl. 4; and Kaogu 1975:2, p. 101, fig. 3

The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 766h78 is consistent with the dating of this lot