J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Early Chinese Ceramics: An American Private Collection
March 28 - April 16, 2005
10.
A LARGE BLUE-GLAZED POTTERY JAR AND COVER
Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618–907)
of wide-shouldered form, the almost spherical body tapering at the base to a solid foot with flared and chamfered edge, the wide mouth encircled by a short neck with rolled-out lip rim, surmounted by a domed cover with flanged edge and central lotus bud-form knop raised on a shallow circular platform, the exterior of the jar and cover with a rich dark blue glaze pooling around the shoulders, extending low on the sides and ending unevenly to reveal the pale buff pottery body, the glaze running over onto the base in two places, and the mouth with three spur marks from the firing, the interior of the jar applied with a finely crackled pale yellow glaze.
Height 9 1⁄4 inches (23.5 cm)
Ex Collection Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Clark, Fulmer, Bucks.
Exhibited on long-term loan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1981–1993.
Exhibited on loan at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, 2001.
This classic form of Tang jar, referred to in Chinese as a wan nian guan (“ten thousand years jar”) because of its popularity as tomb furniture for “eternal use”, is a very well known shape, but large Tang covered jars entirely glazed in blue are very rare. Watson discusses the category at length in Tang and Liao Ceramics, London, 1984, pp. 108–113, and points out that blue is the rarest of all the Tang glaze colors in extensive use.
A Tang blue-glazed covered jar of slightly smaller size from the Ataka Collection, now in the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, is illustrated in the catalogue of the Exhibition of Far-Eastern Ceramics from the Ataka Collection, Osaka, 1979, no. 15 and another example of similar size included in the Osaka Municipal Museum exhibition in 1976 is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Zuito no bijutsu (Art of the Sui and Tang Dynasties), Tokyo, 1978, col. pl. no. 5. Compare also the larger Tang blue glazed covered jar, with a more uneven glaze applied in several washes and ending well short of the foot, from the Rothschild Collection at Ascott, Buckinghamshire, a National Trust property, illustrated by Watson, Tang and Liao Ceramics, London, 1984, p. 110, no. 81, also illustrated by Krahl on the cover of the recently published catalogue of the Chinese ceramics at Ascott entitled Chinese Ceramics, The Anthony de Rothschild Collection, London, 2000.
唐 藍釉蓋罐 高 23.5 厘米
