J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York

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Past Exhibition

EARLY CHINESE WHITE WARES
The Ronald W. Longsdorf Collection

September 11 - October 3, 2015

25.
A SMALL CYLINDRICAL BOX AND COVER

Northern Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1127)
Ding type

with flush-fitting straight sides, the base of the box rounded in to a countersunk foot, the cover resting on a crisply cut ledge and held in place by an inner flange around the mouth of the box, the top of the cover rounded up to a wide dome, echoing the form of the base, with a glossy transparent glaze of pale ivory tone ending short of the foot on the exterior and liberally splashed on the interior, the rims wiped clean of glaze exposing the white porcelain body.

Height 3 inches (7.5 cm)

Compare the small white porcelain box and cover from the Carl Kempe Collection, illustrated by Gyllensvärd in Chinese Ceramics in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1964, p. 121, no. 372, identified as Xingyao.

Compare also the larger white porcelain box and cover of similar form excavated in 1984 from a Northern Song tomb at Hefei, Anhui province, now in the collection of the Anhui Provincial Museum, illustrated by Wang and Yuan, “Whitewares of Five Dynasties and Northern Song Dynasty collected by Anhui Provincial Museum,” published in Symposium on Ancient Chinese White Porcelain Proceedings, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2005, p. 383, no. 2, where the authors discuss the characteristics of 10th-12th century white porcelains and tentatively suggest the box found in the Northern Song tomb at Hefei may have been made locally in Anhui province, possibly at the Yan’gong kilns, Xuanzhou, where high quality whitewares were made during the Five Dynasties period.

北宋 定窰系白瓷小奩 高 7.5 厘米