NOTHERN SONG DYNASTY (AD 960-1127)

A Cizhou jar of comparable size, but of slightly more compressed form and carved through an ivory-toned slip to a pale grey ground with a wide band of leafy floral scroll, is illustrated in Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1994, pp. 326-7, no. 145, where it is dated late Northern Song. On the Kwan jar, a band of diagonal, overlapping petals is carved on the shoulder while a similar band appears on the lower body of the current jar. A larger (20 cm. high) Northern Song rounded jar carved with stylized peony scroll through a white slip ground, in the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, is illustrated in Sung Ceramics, Tokyo, 1979, mo. 93.