NORTHERN SONG DYNASTY (AD 960-1127)

This distinctive Yaozhou vessel is a slightly compressed version of a form that in China is usually called a zun, or wine jar. At the Yaozhou kilns it is possible that the form has a predecessor in a similar type of jar, but without an everted rim, that has been found among the Five Dynasty vessels at the Huangbaozhen kiln site. See Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka (eds.), The Masterpieces of Yaozhou Ware, Tokyo, 1997, p. 101, no. 133. Several jars similar to the current vessel, with curled lip and carved decoration, but with thin raised lines of slip inside the mouth, rather than lines of darker olive glaze as seen in the mouth of the current jar, have been found in the Song strata at the Yaozhou kiln at Huangbaozhen. See Shaanxi Tongchuan Yaozhou yao, Beijing, 1965, p. 23, fig. 14, no. 1, and Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute and Museum of Yaozhou Ware, Songdai Yaozhou Yaozhi, Beijing, 1998, p. 589. Further Yaozhou jars of the same shape and decoration include the jar in the Robert Barron Collection illustrated by L. Rotondo-McCord in the catalogue for the exhibition, Heaven and Earth Seen Within, New Orleans Museum of Art, 2000, no. 10, and the jar illustrated by R. Krahl in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994, vol. 1, p. 231, no. 412. Related Yaozhou jars of taller, less compressed form and raised on a taller splayed foot, include the jar in The Metropolitan Museum of Art illustrated by S. Valenstein, Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, rev. ed. 1989, p. 82, no. 76, and the jar sold in The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics – The Linyushanren Collection, Part I; Christie’s Hong Kong, 2 December 2015, lot 2803.