J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
The Gordon Collection:
Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
March 12 - April 4, 2009
13.
A CARVED YAOZHOU CELADON INCENSE BURNER ON ‘MONSTER-MASK’ LEGS
Northern Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1127)
following a metal prototype, the straight-sided shallow bowl raised on five lion-paw supports, each issuing from the jaws of a feline monster head with long fangs, pricked nostrils and staring eyes under bushy brows, all in high relief around the sides of the bowl and separated by carved flat vertical flutes beneath a flat flaring rim well carved with a wide frieze of foliage, with combed details on the petals and leaves, covered all over with a glossy translucent glaze of characteristic olive-green color, the glaze pooling in the recesses of the carving to highlight the design, the interior with a thin wash of glaze and the gray stoneware burnt to pale tan in the firing.
Diameter 5 1⁄2 inches (14 cm)
Compare the Yaozhou incense burner of similar form and less elaborately carved design excavated in 1994 at Tongchuan, Huangpu village, Yaozhou county, Shaanxi province, exhibited at the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, and illustrated in the catalogue entitled The Masterpieces of Yaozhou Ware, Osaka, 1997, no. 79, p. 61. A very similar piece also found at the Yaozhou kiln site, Shaanxi province, is illustrated by Wirgin in Sung Ceramic Designs, B.M.F.E.A., No. 42, Stockholm, 1970, pl. 7i and published in Kaogu, 1959, No. 12, pl. 7, no. 13.
Compare also the smaller Yaozhou incense burner, without the animal masks design on the legs, illustrated by Gyllensvard in Chinese Ceramics in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1964, no. 86, p. 47.
A smaller example excavated from the Huangpu town kiln site near Tongchuan city, Shaanxi province, is illustrated in Song Dai Yaozhou Yao Zhi (The Yaozhou Kiln Site of the Song Period), Beijing, 1998, col. pl. 9, no. 4 and pl. 85, no.2, with line drawing in fig. 160, no. 4, p. 316.
北宋 耀州青磁刻花獸面五足爐 徑 14 厘米
