Northern Song (960-1127) to Jin dynasty (1115-1234).

The globular body rising to pronounced rounded shoulders and surmounted by a narrow flanged neck, freely painted on the exterior in bold russet-iron brush strokes with stylised phoenix or bird motif against a thick, glossy black glaze, extending to the interior and the base, leaving only the foot ring unglazed, revealing the pale brown stoneware body

Dimensions:

Height 21.5 cm, diameter 20 cm.

Note: Ovoid jars of this type, with this distinctively small, double-ringed mouth, are termed xiaokou ping (small-mouthed bottles), and were probably used for storing wine and other liquids. Typically dark-glazed, such bottles are often painted in russet and in this instance decorated with an abstract phoenix design. Birds in flight, or abstract floral decoration, rendered with vigorous, calligraphic strokes, are also characteristics of these jars.


Ref:
A jar of this type, with floral decoration rather than the birds on the shoulder of the present jar, in the collection of Dr Robert Barron, is illustrated by R.D. Mowry in Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, 1996, p. 165, no. 55, and subsequently sold at Christie's New York, 30 March 2005, lot 303. 

Compare also a related jar of larger size from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection, sold at Christie's New York, The Collection Of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth Part I - Masterworks Including Indian, Himalayan And Southeast Asian Works Of Art, Chinese And Japanese Works Of Art, 17 March 2015, lot 19. 

Another jar of similar form and similarly decorated with phoenix, was in the Linyushanren collection and sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 2 Dec 2015, lot 2823.

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Code: A00490