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Lot Essay
Ovoid jars of this type, with these distinctive small, double-ringed lips, 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 floral decoration or designs suggestive of birds in flight, characteristically rendered with vigorous, calligraphic strokes. The present lot is unusual for its elegantly restrained decoration of floral sprays.
Two similar jars with abstract floral decoration from the collections of Dr. Robert Barron and R. Hatfield Ellsworth are illustrated by R. Mowry, Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996, nos. 55 and 56 respectively, and others in the collection of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco illustrated by He Li, Chinese Ceramics, A New Comprehensive Survey, New York, 1996, p. 166, nos. 309 and 312.
Two similar jars with abstract floral decoration from the collections of Dr. Robert Barron and R. Hatfield Ellsworth are illustrated by R. Mowry, Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996, nos. 55 and 56 respectively, and others in the collection of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco illustrated by He Li, Chinese Ceramics, A New Comprehensive Survey, New York, 1996, p. 166, nos. 309 and 312.