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Lot Essay
The fine, raised lines on vases of this type give the shape one of its Chinese names, xianwenping, 'string pattern vase'.
Vases of this form are seen with two slightly different mouth rim types, a wide dish-shaped mouth or a widely flared mouth with upright and somewhat inverted rim. The present vase has a mouth of the second type, as does a vase in the Nezu Museum illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 12, Tokyo, 1977, no. 81, and another in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art illustrated by M. Medley in Illustrated Catalogue of Celadon Wares, London, 1977, pl. V, no. 50. Vases with the wide, more rounded dish-shaped mouth are represented by the example in the Falk Collection sold at Christie's New York, 20 September 2001, lot 119. The fact that the two types were contemporary is emphasized by the finds from a remarkable Southern Song hoard excavated at Jinyucun, Suining City, Sichuan province in 1991. See Newly Discovered Southern Song Ceramics - A Thirteenth-Century "Time Capsule", Japan, 1998, for three vases of the present type, pp. 14-16, nos. 2-4. Vases of this form have also been excavated from kiln sites in the Longquan area, such as the example illustrated in Longquan Qingci Yanjiu, Beijing, 1989, pl. 41, fig. 1.
These tall vases with 'bamboo' necks were much admired in Japan, both for their elegant form and the beauty of their glaze, and were among the cargo of the Sinan wreck, which foundered off the Sinan coast of Korea on its way to Japan, in AD 1323. See National Museum of Korea, Sinan Wreck Exhibition, Seoul, 1977, no. 15.
Vases of this form are seen with two slightly different mouth rim types, a wide dish-shaped mouth or a widely flared mouth with upright and somewhat inverted rim. The present vase has a mouth of the second type, as does a vase in the Nezu Museum illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 12, Tokyo, 1977, no. 81, and another in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art illustrated by M. Medley in Illustrated Catalogue of Celadon Wares, London, 1977, pl. V, no. 50. Vases with the wide, more rounded dish-shaped mouth are represented by the example in the Falk Collection sold at Christie's New York, 20 September 2001, lot 119. The fact that the two types were contemporary is emphasized by the finds from a remarkable Southern Song hoard excavated at Jinyucun, Suining City, Sichuan province in 1991. See Newly Discovered Southern Song Ceramics - A Thirteenth-Century "Time Capsule", Japan, 1998, for three vases of the present type, pp. 14-16, nos. 2-4. Vases of this form have also been excavated from kiln sites in the Longquan area, such as the example illustrated in Longquan Qingci Yanjiu, Beijing, 1989, pl. 41, fig. 1.
These tall vases with 'bamboo' necks were much admired in Japan, both for their elegant form and the beauty of their glaze, and were among the cargo of the Sinan wreck, which foundered off the Sinan coast of Korea on its way to Japan, in AD 1323. See National Museum of Korea, Sinan Wreck Exhibition, Seoul, 1977, no. 15.