A RARE INCISED YUE CELADON CIRCULAR 'BUTTERFLIES' BOX AND COVER
A RARE INCISED YUE CELADON CIRCULAR 'BUTTERFLIES' BOX AND COVER
A RARE INCISED YUE CELADON CIRCULAR 'BUTTERFLIES' BOX AND COVER
A RARE INCISED YUE CELADON CIRCULAR 'BUTTERFLIES' BOX AND COVER
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Centuries of Taste: Legacy of a Private CollectionMeticulously assembled over decades with the utmost discretion, Centuries of Taste Legacy of a Private Collection reflects the breadth of an expansive yet refined vision. This treasured collection comes from a polymath, a Renaissance man in the fullest sense: a doctor turned banker who remained close to medicine through acts of philanthropy; an entrepreneur who owned a theater as well as an ice cream company; a man of passion who took pleasure in cultivating beauty, be it raising horses to the highest standards or developing — with the advice from the most renowned dealers in the field — a diverse art collection to be lived with and cher­ished. His trove spans international artistic movements from the 10th to 20th centuries, represented through the media of painting, drawing, sculpture, furniture and the decorative arts. We hope our audiences will encounter such delight and wonderment in these objects as did the collector himself. Centuries of Taste Legacy of a Private Collection will be presented in our salerooms in New York occurring from January 2025 to May 2026 at Christie’s New York and Christie’s Hong Kong.
A RARE INCISED YUE CELADON CIRCULAR 'BUTTERFLIES' BOX AND COVER

FIVE DYNASTIES-NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY, 10TH CENTURY

Details
A RARE INCISED YUE CELADON CIRCULAR 'BUTTERFLIES' BOX AND COVER
FIVE DYNASTIES-NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY, 10TH CENTURY
5 1⁄8 in. (13 cm.) diam.
Provenance
Christie's New York, 19 September 2006, lot 206.

Brought to you by

Rufus Chen (陳嘉安)
Rufus Chen (陳嘉安) Head of Sale, AVP, Specialist

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Lot Essay

The arrangement of the decorative motif on the cover, dividing the surface in half and placing the butterflies either side of a central axis, is closely related to the metalwork of the middle to late Tang period. Yue ware of the Five Dynasties and Northern Song periods adopted this style of decoration, and the present box and cover exhibits the way in which the potters used painterly concepts and fine incised lineation to imitate the detailed metalwork of the earlier period.

See a Yue box and cover, dated to the late Tang dynasty or 10th century, incised with a design of cash, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Chinese Ceramics, From the Prehistoric Period through Ch’ien Lung, Los Angeles County Museum, 1952, p. 98, no. 259, while a Northern Song Yue box and cover, incised with a pair of parrots, is illustrated in Special Exhibition of Early Chinese Greenware – Principally Yueh Ware, National Museum of History, Taipei, 1996, pp. 362-3, pl. 113. Another green-glazed box and cover dated to the Five Dynasties/Song dynasty, incised with Tang-style floral sprays, is included in the exhibition catalogue, Tokubetsu Tenji Higashi Ajia no Futamono (Special Exhibition of Covered Boxes from East Asia), Izumishi Kuboso Memorial Museum, 1984, p. 27, no. 33.

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