NORTHERN SONG-JIN DYNASTY, 12TH-13TH CENTURY

Details

A LARGE JUN TRIPOD CENSER
NORTHERN SONG-JIN DYNASTY, 12TH-13TH CENTURY
The compressed globular body is supported on three short feet and is surmounted by a wide cylindrical neck rising from the shoulders to an everted rim with upturned lip. The censer is covered overall with a lightly crackled sky-blue glaze of even tone thinning at the rim to a pale mushroom color.
6 in. (15.2 cm.) high, hardwood stand, cloth box

Provenance

Collection of Alexandre J. Argyropoulos (1894-1978), Greek Ambassador to China, late 1940s-early 1950s, and thence by descent within the family.
J. J. Lally & Co., New York, no. 4247.

Special notice

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Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

The large size of this censer is very unusual, as most Jun censers are of smaller size with somewhat shorter necks. A Jun censer of similar size is illustrated by R. Hobson in A Catalogue of Chinese Pottery and Porcelain in the Collection of Sir Percival David Bt., F.S.A., London, 1934, pl. LXVII; and again by S. Pierson in Illustrated Catalogue of Ru, Guan, Jun, Guangdong and Yixing Wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 1999, rev. ed., p. 38, col. pl. 95, with description on p. 50. See, also, a smaller Jun censer of very similar form with sky-blue glaze in the collection of the Idemitzu Museum of Art, illustrated in Sō ji: shinpo no yakimono (Song Ceramics: Utensils of Sublime Beauty), Tokyo, 2018, p. 72, no. 54, with description on p. 147, and the smaller Jun censer with shorter neck sold at Christie's New York, 18-19 March 2021, lot 886.

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