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Lot Essay
Ovoid jars of this type, with this distinctive small, double-ringed mouth, are termed xiaokou ping (small-mouthed bottles), and were probably used for storing wine and other liquids. Typically dark-glazed, such bottles are often painted in russet or rust-brown slip with abstract designs suggestive of birds in flight, or with abstract floral decoration, characteristically rendered with vigorous, calligraphic strokes.
A jar of this type, with floral decoration rather than the graceful, long-necked birds on the shoulder of the present jar, in the collection of Dr. Robert Barron, is illustrated by R.D. Mowry in Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, 1996, p. 165, no. 55, and subsequently sold in these rooms, 30 March 2005, lot 303.
A jar of this type, with floral decoration rather than the graceful, long-necked birds on the shoulder of the present jar, in the collection of Dr. Robert Barron, is illustrated by R.D. Mowry in Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, 1996, p. 165, no. 55, and subsequently sold in these rooms, 30 March 2005, lot 303.