A Yueyao carved and incised ewer and cover

北宋   越窯刻花紋執壺及蓋

The ewer is well potted with an almost globular body supported on a low, very slightly splayed footrim. The sides are divided into four panels by vertical double fillets, and a double groove around the shoulders, with two large panel-filling peony blossoms on the sides and incised foliate scrollwork at the front and back, all above a border of petals above the foot. The shoulders are decorated with a broad band of finely incised scrollwork, and are set at the front with a short curved spout and the back with a high double-strand handle. Similar scrollwork decorates the sides of the tall cylindrical neck, and the sides and top of the separate straight-sided, double-knopped cover with two small pierced apertures for attachment. A glaze of rich translucent green covers the vessel inside and out on cover and base, pooling to a deeper tone in the recesses of the carving and incising, leaving only a rough circle of elongated whitish spurmarks unglazed.

Published:
'Yueyao.  The Coming of Age of Chinese Ceramics', Priestley & Ferraro, London, 2011, no. 16 

No ewer of this precise pattern appears to have been published. Examples of ewers of different type excavated at the Liduhu site, not far from Shanglinhu, but with similar division of the body by vertical double fillets are illustrated in Shanglinhu Yueyao, Cixi City Museum, (Beijing, 2002) illus. no. 90, p.187, all dated to the Northern Song dynasty.

Dimensions: Height: 18.5 cm, 7 ¼ inches

Date: Northern Song dynasty (960-1127), 11th century

Stock No. 1386

Price: On Request