SOUTHERN SONG-EARLY MING DYNASTY, 13TH-15TH CENTURY

Details

AN IMPORTANT GREENISH-GREY AND RUSSET JADE ARCHAISTIC ZHI-FORM VESSEL
SOUTHERN SONG-EARLY MING DYNASTY, 13TH-15TH CENTURY
The cylindrical cup is raised on three tab feet and is carved on the exterior with two archaistic phoenixes on a ground of small bosses, separated by the taotie mask on the loop handle. The greenish-grey stone has russet inclusions throughout.
3 ¾ in. (9.5 cm.) high

Provenance

Wilfrid Fleisher (1897-1976) Collection, Stockholm.
Eskenazi Ltd., London.
Reach Family Collection.
Eskenazi Ltd., London, 2 November 1992.
The LJZ Collection, United States.

Literature

B. Gyllensvard, Celadon Jade, Stockholm, 1963, p. 33, no. 113.
D. Gure, "Selected Examples from the Jade Exhibition at Stockholm, 1963," Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, vol. 36, Stockholm, 1964, pl. 31, no. 4a-4b.
J. Ayers and J. Rawson, "Chinese Jade throughout the Ages," Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, London, vol. 40, 1975, no. 322.
Eskenazi Ltd., Chinese Jades from a Private Collection, London, 1976, pp. 28-29, cover and no. 14.
Eskenazi Ltd., Chinese Art from the Reach Family Collection, London, 1989, pp. 22-23, no. 5.
J. Johnson and Chan Lai Pik, 5000 Years of Chinese Jade, San Antonio, 2011, p. 90, no. 54.
Eskenazi Ltd., A Dealer’s Hand: The Chinese Art World through the Eyes of Giuseppe Eskenazi, London, 2012, p. 237, pl. 160.
A. Carter, The LJZ Collection of Chinese Jades, London, 2022, pp. 40-41, no. 15.

Exhibited

Stockholm, The National Museum, Celadon Jade, May-June 1963.
London, Victoria & Albert Museum, Chinese Jade throughout the Ages, 1 May-22 June 1975.
London, Eskenazi Ltd., Chinese Jades from a Private Collection, 8 June-9 July 1976.
London, Eskenazi Ltd., Chinese Art from the Reach Family Collection, 8-22 December 1989.
San Antonio, San Antonio Museum of Art, 5000 Years of Chinese Jade, 1 October 2011-19 February 2012.

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Lot Essay

Jade cups of this shape are known as zhi, a shape that appears to have been influenced by lacquer prototypes of late Warring States period-late Western Han dynasty (c. 4^th-1^st century BC) date. See, for example, the zhi raised on three mask-surmounted feet, and set with a small loop handle and a cover, dated Western Han (206 BC-AD 9), illustrated by Huei-chung Tsao in Des Empereurs à L’art Déco, Paris, 2016, p. 118, no. 96, where an archaistic jade cup of this shape dated Ming dynasty, 16^th-17^t^,^h century is also illustrated, no. 95. A drawing of this type of lacquer cup, with a bronze cover, handle and banded tripod support, dated mid-Warring States period (476-221 BC) , excavated from Fuling, Sichuan province, is illustrated by Suning Sun-Bailey, ‘Gained in Translation, Chinse Jade: Selected Articles from Orientations 1983-1996, p. 112, fig. 3. Also illustrated, p. 113, fig. 5, is a gilt-bronze zhi with cover of late Western Han date (206 BC -AD 23), excavated from Shaoguan, Guangdong province.

For an early jade version of a zhi see the Han dynasty example of a jade zhi, its shape and decoration similar to that of the present cup, from the tomb of Liu Hong (d. AD 306) at Anxiang, Hunan province illustrated by Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, British Museum, 1995, p. 75, fig. 70, and by Gu Fang (ed.), The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China, vol. 10, Beijing, 2005, p. 237. On both the cup from Hunan and the current cup, the main field of decoration is bordered above and below by a narrow band, the lower band interrupted by a taotie mask positioned above each of the three feet. Another jade zhi, but with a cover, dated Western Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 9), that is very similar to the present cup and similar in size, is in the Freer Gallery of Art, F1947.10a-c.

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