J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Chinese Porcelain and Silver in the Song Dynasty
March 18 - April 8, 2002
14.
A MOULDED DINGYAO WHITE PORCELAIN FIGURAL EWER
Song Dynasty, A.D. 12th-13th Century
hollow-moulded in the form of a young boy riding on the back of a duck, with his right hand resting on a ribbon-tied brocade ball and holding the bundled stems of a lotus bouquet in his left hand, the lotus curling out to the side with one large lotus pod rising up beside his shoulder and hollowed out to serve as a small mouth for intake and as a vent when pouring, the simply modeled head of the duck with broad flat beak hollowed out in front to serve as the spout, the boy and bird well modeled with extensive details both front and back, the boy shown with his hair gathered up into three small topknots, the bird shown in a recumbent position with its legs moulded in relief on either side of the oval base, covered all over with a creamy white glaze, the underside of the base also glazed except for the wide flat foot rim which is left unglazed revealing the hard white porcelain tinged in pale salmon-pink from firing.
Height 6 inches (15.2 cm)
A very similar but fragmentary Dingyao ewer moulded in the form of a young boy riding on a duck is illustrated in Homage to Heaven, Homage to Earth- Chinese Treasures of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1992, p. 61, pl. 28, right.
A slightly smaller moulded Dingyao figure of a boy riding on a chicken, excavated in 1971 from Chenmin, Dingxian, Heibei province, is illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci Quanji: Dingyao (Compendium of Chinese Ceramics: Dingyao), Vol. 9, Kyoto, 1981, no. 97.
