Russell Tyson (1867-1963) Born in Shanghai and raised in Boston, Russell Tyson came to Chicago in 1893 to begin his career in the real estate firm Aldis & Company. Passionate about Chinese and Korean art, he became one of the strongest supporters of The Art Institute of Chicago, serving as a trustee, honorary vice president, and as a member of the Department of Asian Art’s advisory committee. In 1922, he co-founded the Orientals, a group of like-minded patrons of The Art Institute of Chicago who were committed to fostering the museum’s efforts in Asian art. Tyson grew up surrounded by his family’s collection of Chinese furniture and works of art. In his own collecting, he was captivated first by the beauty of Korean ceramics during his travels to Korea prior to 1920. Subsequently, his tastes expanded to include Chinese textiles and stonewares, as well as Chinese, Japanese and Indian painting. His true devotion, however, was to Chinese ceramics. Tyson’s collection of Chinese ceramics includes some of The Art Institute’s finest pieces in Asian art, such as the painted and gilded pottery figure of an armored guardian, dated to Tang dynasty, late 7th/early 8th century.The Russell Tyson Gallery, dedicated in 1958, hosts the museum’s permanent exhibition of Tang-dynasty art works.

A RARE JIZHOU STENCIL-DECORATED PEAR-SHAPED VASE

SOUTHERN SONG-YUAN DYNASTY, 13TH-14TH CENTURY

Details

A RARE JIZHOU STENCIL-DECORATED PEAR-SHAPED VASE
SOUTHERN SONG-YUAN DYNASTY, 13TH-14TH CENTURY
The vase is elegantly potted and decorated on either side with a stenciled, stylized flowerhead reserved against a dark brown glaze, and fixed-rings handles are on the shoulder.
8 1/8 in. (21 cm.) high

Provenance

Russell Tyson (1867-1963) Collection, Chicago.
The Art Institute of Chicago, accessioned in 1964.

Literature

R. D. Mowry, Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers: Chinese Brown-and-Black-Glazed Ceramics, 400-1400, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 258-59, no. 106.

Lot Essay

Located in central Jiangxi province, the Jizhou kilns were perhaps the most daring, versatile and technically creative kilns of the Song dynasty. Although they produced a wide variety of wares, including northern-style white stonewares with molded and slip-painted designs, the kilns are most famous for their brown and black-glazed wares, particulary those that exhibit the innovative techinque of using openwork paper cutouts as stencils to create resist designs.
The present vase, along with a small group of dark-glazed ceramics, is a rare example of dark-glazed ware that display strong connections to the bronze tradition. The sharply-defined, thick lip and the mock ring-handles of the present vase all link it to the contemporary bronzes of Song date. For further discussion on the relationship between dark glazed ceramic wares and bronzes, and for a related Jizhou vase with dark-brown glaze, its shape derived from bronze hu, see R. D. Mowry, Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, p. 251-52, no. 102.

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