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
29.
A SANCAI-GLAZED MOULDED POTTERY PRESENTATION VESSEL
Liao Dynasty (A.D. 916–1125)
of shallow oval shape and quatrefoil outline, probably following a silver prototype, the upright convex sides moulded in high relief with quatrefoil panels filled with ‘precious objects’ flanked by stylized florets and columns of ‘pearls’, between raised ‘classic scroll’ borders around the rim and base, the decoration picked out in bright green and the background glazed in amber brown, the platform top with a dished central quatrefoil reservoir enclosed by a high wedge-shaped rim and glazed in deep green, and with three spur marks from the firing, the outer margin splashed with amber glaze, the underside unglazed showing the pale buff pottery body, and with remains of earth from burial.
Length 6 1⁄8 inches (15.6 cm)
This vessel shape is unique to the Liao dynasty. The depictions of this type of vessel in murals found in Liao dynasty tombs indicate that it was used for the presentation of fruits or other delicacies. Compare, for example, the similarly moulded pottery vessels depicted in three of the nine Liao dynasty tombs excavated between 1974 to 1993 in Xiabali village, Xuanhua district of Zhangjiakou city in Hebei province, illustrated in Xuanhua Liaomu Bihua (Tomb Murals of Liao Dynasty in Xuanhua), Beijing, 2001, nos. 22, 81 and 95.
Compare also the set of five smaller amber-glazed moulded pottery vessels of the same distinctive shape, from a Liao tomb excavated in Chifeng city, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci Quanji: Liao Xixia Jin (The Complete Works of Chinese Ceramics: Liao, Xixia and Jin Dynasties), Vol. 9, Shanghai, 2000, p. 111, no. 72, with description on p. 264.
遼 三彩印花海棠形盤 徑 15.6 厘米
