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
54.
A LONGQUAN CELADON ‘KINUTA’ VASE
Southern Song Dynasty, A.D. 13th Century
the well-proportioned mallet-shaped body with slight tapering sides and rounded sloping shoulders surmounted by a cylindrical neck applied with a pair of loop handles, each moulded in the form of a dragon with fish tail and with a pair of short fins in high relief, surmounted by a widely flared mouth with upturned rim, covered inside and out with a lustrous glaze of attractive bluish-green color, continuing over the flat inset base and thinning over the lip rim to show the pale silvery gray stoneware body underneath, the finely moulded details on the handles also showing as pale silvery lines through the glaze, the wide footrim left unglazed and the exposed body burnt orange in the firing.
Height 7 5⁄8 inches (19.3 cm)
Compare the slightly larger Longquan celadon vase with dragon-fish handles illustrated in the National Museum of Korea special exhibition catalogue, Cultural Relics Found off the Sinan Coast, Seoul, 1977, col. pl. no. 3 and again in black and white, pl. 4. Compare also the Longquan vase of the same shape and of smaller size with the more common phoenix handles, illustrated op.cit., pls. 6 and 7. The “Sinan wreck”, as it is commonly called, is the wreck of a Chinese merchant ship that sank off the coast of Korea in 1323 with a cargo of Chinese wares including a large group of Longquan celadons and other Chinese ceramics.
A slightly smaller Lonquan celadon kinuta vase with dragon-fish handles of less elaborate form, without the rare feature of high-relief modelling of the fins, is illustrated by Krahl in Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Vol. I, London 1994, p. 304, no. 570. Another Longquan celadon vase of this form with dragon-fish handles, from the Brodie Lodge Collection, is illustrated by Gompertz in Chinese Celadon Wares, rev.ed., London, 1980, p. 166, pl. 84A, and another example, from the Frederick Mayer Collection was exhibited at the Asia Society in New York and illustrated in the catalogue by Cahill, The Art of Southern Sung China, London, 1962, pl. 54. Compare also the smaller Longquan celadon vase of this type in the Victoria and Albert Museum, illustrated by Kerr in Song Dynasty Ceramics, London, 2004, p. 94, no. 95.
宋 龍泉龍魚雙耳瓶 高 19.3 厘米
54.
A LONGQUAN CELADON ‘KINUTA’ VASE
Southern Song Dynasty, A.D. 13th Century
Height 7 5⁄8 inches (19.3 cm)