TWO SMALL NEOLITHIC PAINTED REDDISH POTTERY VESSELS

Details

TWO SMALL NEOLITHIC PAINTED REDDISH POTTERY VESSELS
MAJIAYAO YANGSHOU CULTURE, MACHANG PHASE, CIRCA 2300-2000 B.C.

One a small bulbous jar reverse-decorated in black and dark red with narrow dividing borders of waves above a band of elongated cowrie shells, with an 'X' within a red-bordered panel set below each short, strap handle which joins the shoulder to the mouth rim; the other a squat stem bowl (dou) raised on a spreading pedestal foot, the interior of the flared bowl painted in black and dark red with four angled spirals below a band of reverse-decorated diamonds on the canted rim
Jar 5 1/8in. (13cm.) high; stem bowl 4½in. (11.4cm.) diam. (2)

Lot Essay

A similar small jar with cowrie shell decoration in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is illustrated by Suzanne Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989 ed., p. 8, no. 8. For a stem bowl (dou) of similar shape with painted decoration on the interior, see the example included in the exhibition, Ancient Chinese Ceramics from the Neolithic Period to the Western Han, II, Uragami Sokyu-Do, Co., Ltd., 1994, Catalogue, p. 25, no. 16