J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Chinese Ceramics A.D. 400–1400:
Selections from an American Collection
March 19 - 31, 2007
16.
A CIZHOU PAINTED POTTERY TRUNCATED MEIPING (TULUPING)
Song Dynasty, A.D. 12th Century
boldly painted in dark brown over a cream white ground with two large peony sprays evenly spaced around the sides, separated by two butterflies in flight on the shoulders, the blooms outlined and detailed with freely incised lines, the spines of the leaves and the wings of the butterflies also scored, all under a glossy clear glaze, the high rounded shoulders centered with a short cylindrical neck with slightly flaring mouth and wide flat flanged lip, the slightly recessed flat base surrounded by a wide shallow ring foot wiped clean of glaze revealing the pale gray stoneware.
Height 7 7⁄8 inches (20 cm)
A Cizhou tuluping of this type decorated with peony sprays and butterflies in the same technique is published in Illustrated Catalogues of Tokyo National Museum, Chinese Ceramics, Vol. I, Tokyo, 1988, fig. 567, p. 141, and the same vase in the Tokyo National Museum is illustrated by Tregear, Song Ceramics, New York, 1982, no. 87, p. 90, where the author states that similarly decorated shards have been found at Guantaizhen and at Dong’aikoucun, Cizhou, in Hebei province. Another example of very similar form and closely related design in the MOA Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan, was shown at the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art and illustrated by Mino in the exhibition catalogue, Charm of Black & White Ware; Transition of Cizhou Type Wares, Osaka, 2002, no. 78, p. 99.
Compare also the painted Cizhou tuluping of this classic type in the Hakone Art Museum, Japan, illustrated by Mino and Tsiang, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz’u-chou type Wares, 960-1600 A.D., Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1980, on the cover of the catalogue and on pl. 87, p. 199, together with another example from the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery/ Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, pl. 88, p. 201. Another example is illustrated in the catalogue of masterpieces in the Chang Foundation by Spenser, Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Taiwan, 1990, no. 48; and another similar Cizhou tuluping is illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, no. 572.
16.
A CIZHOU PAINTED POTTERY TRUNCATED MEIPING (TULUPING)
Song Dynasty, A.D. 12th Century
Height 7 7⁄8 inches (20 cm)