Lot 718. A Guan-type Longquan tripod censer, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279). Estimate USD 50,000 - USD 60,000. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2016.
The censer has a cylindrical ribbed body with a countersunk base supported on three cabriole legs and rises to an inverted broad rim. It is covered, overall with a warm golden ivory glaze suffused with extensive icy crackles and a wider network of dark crackles. 4 11/16 in. (12 cm.) diam., Japanese wood box.
Provenance: Lord Cunliffe (1899-1963) Collection; Bonham’s London, 11 November 2002, lot 32.
Sen Shu Tey, Tokyo.
Literature: Sen Shu Tey, The Collection of Chinese Art - Special Exhibition ‘Run Through 10 Years’, Tokyo, 2006, p. 60, no. 73.
Christie's, The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramic: An Exhibition of Song Treasures from the Linyushanren Collection, Hong Kong, 2012, p. 181, no. 78.
Exhibited: On loan to the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, 1991-2002, no. NMWA(L)765.
Sen Shu Tey, The Collection of Chinese Art - Special Exhibition ‘Run Through 10 Years’, Tokyo, 2006.
Christie's, The Classical Age of Chinese Ceramics: An Exhibition of Song Treasures from the Linyushanren Collection, Hong Kong, 22 to 27 November 2012; New York, 15 to 20 March 2013; London, 10 to 14 May 2013.
Notes: Although the glazes of most Longquan celadon wares exhibit a cool, bluish-green hue and lack crackles, fine crackled wares were also made at the Longquan kilns during the Southern Song period. Renowned archaeologist Professor Zhu Boqian has suggested that the Longquan kilns began to make crackled wares around 1200 in imitation of the Southern Song crackled Guan wares made at the Jiaotanxia kilns, near Hangzhou. (Rosemary Scott, “Guan or Ge Ware: A Re-Examination of Some Pieces in the Percival David Foundation”, Oriental Art, Summer 1993, vol. 39, no. 2, p. 19.) According to excavation reports, places where these Longquan wares in the Guan style were made include Xinting, Aodi, and Shanshu Lianshan in Dayao County and Wayaoqing, Kulouwan, and Lijiashan in Xikou County. SeeSung Guan Yao Te Zhan (Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Sung Dynasty Kuan Ware), National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1989, p. 30.
It is very rare to find a Longquan censer of this form covered with a golden crackled glaze. A Longquan censer of this form, but covered in the more commonly seen bluish-green glaze, was discovered in 1991 in Suining, Sichuan province, amongst a cache of ceramics dating from the late Southern Song period, and is illustrated in Newly Discovered Southern Song Ceramics, A Thirteenth- Century “Time Capsule”, Tokyo, 1998, p. 32, no. 23.
Christie's. The Classic Age of Chinese Ceramics: The Linyushanren Collection, Part II - 15 September 2016, New York, Rockefeller Plaza