Lot Essay
Yue ware was produced from the Eastern Han period to the Song Dynasty in numerous kilns in northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu provinces. At a time when there was widespread political unrest in China, the potters of Yue ware during the Jin Dynasty were particularly inventive and created animals and vessels with humour and vitality, such as can be seen in the present lot. See Animal Farm in Yue Ware, Uragami Sokyu-do Co. Ltd., 1992, nos. 117-124, pp.106-111 for jars of this form. A similar jar is in the Tokyo National Museum, illustrated Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol.1, fig.17; another was included in Special Exhibition of the National Museum of History's Chinese Ceramic Collection through the Ages, 1997, Taibei, Catalogue no.40, p.52; and two further examples are illustrated in Five Thousand Years of Chinese Art Series: Porcelain, Part 1, Taiwan, 1983, pp.82 and 83.