A WELL-PAINTED GRAY POTTERY SQUARE BALUSTER JAR AND COVER, FANGHU HAN DYNASTY

Details

A WELL-PAINTED GRAY POTTERY SQUARE BALUSTER JAR AND COVER, FANGHU HAN DYNASTY

The faceted body painted on two sides with a large taotie mask suspending a ring and on the other two with an interlaced foliate scroll, set between a foliate scroll spray on each side of the pedestal foot below and a band of linear scroll above, the neck decorated with pendent blades separated by bejeweled tear drop motifs, and the canted cover painted with four large ovoid petals and pierced above each corner for the attachment of an additional ornament, with wide, white borders at the rims, all in ochre, white, orange and pale gray reserved on the dark gray body (some rim chips)
17in. (43.2cm.) high

Lot Essay

Compare a fanghu and cover, also painted with large taotie masks on the sides, but in a slightly different style, included in the Exhibition of Eastern Art, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 1968, Catalogue, p. 79, no. 348; and another illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol. 8, Tokyo, 1955, pl. 11. Others are illustrated by W. P. Yetts in the Eumorfopoulos Collection Catalogue, vol. I, London, 1929, pl. XIV and by William Watson, Pre-Tang Ceramics of China, London, 1991, p. 122, no. 83