AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE DING 'QILIN' PILLOW

Ding pillows carved with zoomorphic decoration are exceptionally rare, the vast majority of known examples being decorated with floral motifs. For a related two-color Ding pillow carved with a lotus design in the Palace Museum, Beijing, inscribed and dated to the eighth year of the Dading reign (1168), see The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum – 32 - Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (I), Hong Kong, 1996, pp. 98–9, no. 89. Another two-color Ding pillow of comparable form decorated with floral motifs, also in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Dingci yaji: Gugong bowuyuan zhencang ji chutu Dingyao ciqi huicui (Selection of Ding Ware: The Palace Museum’s Collection and Archaeological Excavation), Beijing, 2012, no. 100.

Further comparable carved Ding pillows include an example in the Dingzhou Museum, Hebei Province, illustrated in Mu in Dingci yishu (The Art of Ding Porcelain), Shijiazhuang, 2002, p. 148, no. 198. Related two-color Ding pillows are also preserved in major international collections, including one in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, illustrated by B. Gray in Sung Porcelain and Stoneware, London, 1984, p. 72, no. 52, and another published in Chinese Ceramic Pillows from the Yeung Wing Tak Collection, Osaka, 1984, p. 34, no. 6.