A PAINTED CIZHOU TIGER-FORM PILLOW

JIN DYNASTY (1115-1234)

Details

A PAINTED CIZHOU TIGER-FORM PILLOW
JIN DYNASTY (1115-1234)
The pillow is molded as a recumbent tiger, the details painted in dark brown and pale russet on a white slip and under a clear glaze, and the slightly dished top is painted with a rectangular panel of a crane in flight.
11 3/8 in. (29.5 cm.) long, Japanese wood box

Provenance

Ikeda Kobijutsu, Tokyo.

Lot Essay

A similar Cizhou-type tiger-form pillow, but decorated with a swan rather than a crane, is illustrated by Jiena Huo in Fire and Earth: Early Chinese Ceramics (3500 B.C. - 1400 A.D.) in the Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne, 2008, p. 187, no. 147, where it is dated Jin dynasty, 12th century. The another notes the pillow is probably from Changzhi, in Shanxi, where other pillows of this type have been found.
Animal-form pillows were believed to protect against evil and to have helped women give birth to sons.

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