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

This type of celadon ware with deeply carved decoration was often referred to as Dongyao in the past. Dong ware was thought to have been made around Kaifeng, Henan, but no comparable pieces have yet been excavated in that area. Today, Dongyao is thought to be more likely a group of Yaozhou wares produced in Shaanxi province, (see Mino and Tsiang, Ice and Green Clouds: Traditions of Chinese Celadon, Indianapolis, 1986, pp. 140–141) where excavated pieces from this area display similar characteristics. Compare for example, the tripod jar of similar squat form and with similarly carved decoration, excavated from Binxian, Shaanxi, illustrated by Mino and Tsiang, op. cit., p. 140, fig. 52c. Compare also the ewer with similarly carved decoration in the Hoyt collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics: The World’s Great Collections, Vol. 10, Tokyo, 1980, col. pl. 10.

A carved Yaozhou ewer of closely related form, with animal-head spout, is in the Meiyintang Collection, illustrated by Krahl in the catalogue of the 1996 exhibition in Monte Carlo, Evolution to Perfection: Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1996, p. 60, no. 83. Compare also the similarly carved Yaozhou tripod jar of related form, included in the 1997 travelling exhibition and illustrated in the catalogue, The Masterpieces of Yaozhou Ware, Osaka, 1997, p. 22, no. 22, from the Shaanxi History Museum.