.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Stoneware and earthenware flasks of this type are based on the leather water flasks used by the Khitan people of the Liao dynasty. The angular shape of the present flask and its white stoneware body are quite unusual. An almost identical flask of the exact same size, excavated from the tomb of a Liao Prince, is illustrated in Ryo no toji (Liao Dynasty Ceramics), Heihonsha, Tokyo, 1960, p. 9, fig. 10.
Another very similar flask is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1994, pp. 390-91, no. 177, where it is described as Gangwa ware, Chifeng. Other flasks comparable in workmanship to the present flask have been found in royal Liao tombs such as a tomb datable to AD 959 at Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, illustrated by Liu Tao, Song Liao Jin jinian ciqi (Dated Ceramics of the Song, Liao and Jin Periods), Beijing, 2004, p. 68, figs. 4-7, and col. pl. 25. The distinctive shape of the flange of these flasks is considered to be reminiscent of a cockscomb.
Another very similar flask is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1994, pp. 390-91, no. 177, where it is described as Gangwa ware, Chifeng. Other flasks comparable in workmanship to the present flask have been found in royal Liao tombs such as a tomb datable to AD 959 at Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, illustrated by Liu Tao, Song Liao Jin jinian ciqi (Dated Ceramics of the Song, Liao and Jin Periods), Beijing, 2004, p. 68, figs. 4-7, and col. pl. 25. The distinctive shape of the flange of these flasks is considered to be reminiscent of a cockscomb.