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Lot Essay
The very difficult technique used to produce the striking design on this vase was developed at the Cizhou kilns in the Northern Song dynasty. It involved the application of a pale slip to the unfired stoneware vessel, followed by a dark slip. The outline of the decoration was then incised through the dark top layer and the background area of the design was cut away to reveal the pale slip beneath. Details, such as leaf veins, were also incised through the dark upper layer either with a fine point or a comb-like instrument. The thin colourless glaze could then be applied and the vessel fired.
This technique required a very skillful application, since the slip layers were both relatively soft and the decorator had to judge exactly how deep to cut in order to remove the dark slip layer without accidentally cutting away the lower pale layer. When successfully rendered, the technique was ideal for the depiction of dramatic large-scale floral motifs like those seen on the current vase.
A Cizhou meiping with similar carved decoration in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 1), is illustrated by S. G. Valenstein in A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, p. 93, pl. 88. Another similarly carved meiping was sold at Christie’s New York, The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics- The Linyushanren Collection, Part III, 22 March 2018, lot 516. A further similar example was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, The Legacy of Hirano Kotoken, 8 April 2023, lot 3511.
The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd. thermoluminescence test no. P123m60 (15 September 2023) is consistent with the dating of this lot.
This technique required a very skillful application, since the slip layers were both relatively soft and the decorator had to judge exactly how deep to cut in order to remove the dark slip layer without accidentally cutting away the lower pale layer. When successfully rendered, the technique was ideal for the depiction of dramatic large-scale floral motifs like those seen on the current vase.
A Cizhou meiping with similar carved decoration in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 1), is illustrated by S. G. Valenstein in A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, p. 93, pl. 88. Another similarly carved meiping was sold at Christie’s New York, The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics- The Linyushanren Collection, Part III, 22 March 2018, lot 516. A further similar example was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, The Legacy of Hirano Kotoken, 8 April 2023, lot 3511.
The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd. thermoluminescence test no. P123m60 (15 September 2023) is consistent with the dating of this lot.