SOUTHERN SONG DYNASTY (1127-1279)

The painting of the botanical scroll on this handsome bottle is remarkable for the sense of fluidity and spontinaity of the brushwork and the carefully orchestrated pattern of the design across the surface of the vessel. A related overall pattern of lotus, but in reverse, with the flowers and leaves reserved against a dark ground, can be found on a Jizhou bottle dated to the Southern Song period, 13th century, in the Anhui Provincial Museum, illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan, taoci juan, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 290, no. 406. Similar lotus pattern can also be found on a printed textile from a tomb in Fujian whose occupent died in 1243. See Fuzhou Nansong Huangshengmu, Beijing, 1982, p. 125, fig. 91.