A RARE SANCAI-GLAZED POTTERY TALL OVOID JAR

TANG DYNASTY (618-907)

Details

A RARE SANCAI-GLAZED POTTERY TALL OVOID JAR
TANG DYNASTY (618-907)
Of tall, tapering ovoid form, covered in a splashed glaze of amber, green and cream that continues over the edge of the inverted mouth rim and falls in an attractive, well-controlled pattern down the sides to end in an irregular line on the lower body above the flat base exposing the pale buff body
10 3/8 in. (27 cm.) high

Provenance

Collection of Winifred Gray Whitman, M.D., Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Parke Bernet, Inc., New York, 29-30 May 1973, lot 259.

Lot Essay

The ovoid shape of this jar, with the high shoulder rounding upwards to surround the mouth is very unusual in Tang pottery wares. Most glazed pottery jars of Tang date are surmounted by a neck and are of more globular shape. Another example of this shape with very similar splashed glaze, but of smaller size (8½ in.), in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, is ilustrated by He Li, Chinese Ceramics: A New Comprehensive Survey, New York, 1996, p. 96, no. 161. The author notes, p. 122, that two other neckless jars of ovoid shape have been found in Shaanxi and Henan provinces, and are published in Wenwu Ziliao Congkan, 1982:2, p. 140 and Kaogu yu Wenwu, 1984:1, pl. 7.3, where they are described as "olive-shaped".

The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd. thermoluminescence test number P108u81 is consistent with the dating of this lot.

More from Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art

View All