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Lot Essay
This charming little vase has retained the elegant profile of its larger cousins, and has a beautiful soft, blue-green glaze. As it has a flat back, it was obviously intended to hang somewhere. Most vases intended to hang on a wall have holes or recessed areas to facilitate hanging. The ring on the back of this vase would actually inhibit it from hanging flat against the wall. There are, however, two other possible uses for this vase. It could have been attached to part of a window screen, for example in a sedan chair. Vases were certainly made at a later date specifically for use in imperial sedan chairs. The other possibility is that it was made to be attached to the bars of a bird's cage. The cages of Chinese birds were often furnished with fine ceramic dishes and water containers. The neck of this particular vase, however, is narrow and the vase is tall in proportion to its width, so that this vessel would only have been suitable as a water container for a small, long-beaked bird, such as a humming bird.
A full-sized version of this type of vase, without a flat back, was excavated in 1991 from a Southern Song hoard dated AD 1236 at Suizhu, Jinyucun in Sichuan province. See Newly Discovered Southern Song Ceramics - A Thirteenth-Century "Time Capsule", Tokyo, 1998, p. 27, no. 17. A slightly broader, full-sized version of this vase excavated from the Longquan kilns and now in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Hangzhou, is published in Green Wares from Zhejiang, Fung Ping Shan Museum, University of Hong Kong, 1993, no. 56, where it is dated to the Southern Song dynasty.
Miniature vases without fastening rings or flat backs were also made in China from an early date. A pear-shaped Yue ware miniature vase with fluted sides and a flaring mouth is published by B. Gyllensvärd in Chinese Ceramics in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1964, p. 36, no. 47, where it is dated to the Northern Song dynasty.
A full-sized version of this type of vase, without a flat back, was excavated in 1991 from a Southern Song hoard dated AD 1236 at Suizhu, Jinyucun in Sichuan province. See Newly Discovered Southern Song Ceramics - A Thirteenth-Century "Time Capsule", Tokyo, 1998, p. 27, no. 17. A slightly broader, full-sized version of this vase excavated from the Longquan kilns and now in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Hangzhou, is published in Green Wares from Zhejiang, Fung Ping Shan Museum, University of Hong Kong, 1993, no. 56, where it is dated to the Southern Song dynasty.
Miniature vases without fastening rings or flat backs were also made in China from an early date. A pear-shaped Yue ware miniature vase with fluted sides and a flaring mouth is published by B. Gyllensvärd in Chinese Ceramics in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1964, p. 36, no. 47, where it is dated to the Northern Song dynasty.