A PAIR OF SMALL LONGQUAN CELADON ARROW VASES, TOUHU
A PAIR OF SMALL LONGQUAN CELADON ARROW VASES, TOUHU

YUAN DYNASTY, 13TH-14TH CENTURY

細節
A PAIR OF SMALL LONGQUAN CELADON ARROW VASES, TOUHU
YUAN DYNASTY, 13TH-14TH CENTURY
Each pear-shaped body rising to a tall, slender neck flanked by a pair of tubular handles and flaring slightly at the rim, covered overall with a silk-textured glaze of sea-green tone except for the foot rim burnt reddish brown in the firing
6 1/8 in. (15.5 cm.) high, box (2)
來源
Yamanaka & Co., Collection of Chinese and Other Far Eastern Art, New York, 1943, no. 748.
Warren E. Cox, New York, November 1966.
展覽
Huntsville Museum of Art, Art of China and Japan, 1977, no. 64.
New Orleans Museum of Art, Heaven and Earth Seen Within, 2000, no. 62.

拍品專文

The form of these vases is based on arrow vases, or touhu, the primary accessory of a drinking game which involved throwing all of one's arrows into the mouth of the vessel. The loser was assessed a penalty drink for every errant throw.

Too small to actually be used in the drinking game, the present pair of vases was probably intended to hold flowers, perhaps on a home altar. A pair of Longquan arrow vases of the same height but with wider necks, was recovered from the tomb of the Yuan calligrapher Xian Yushu (1251-1302). See Zhang Yulan, "Hangzhoushi faxian Yuandai Xian Yushu mu," Wenwu, 1990:9, p. 24, figs. 11-12. A similar vase was included in the exhibition, The Scholar as Collector: Chinese Art at Yale, Yale University Art Gallery and China Institute in America, New York, 2004, p. 18, fig. 8.