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OBJECT UNDER SPOTLIGHT

Each month we feature a Chinese Work of Art that exhibits singularly outstanding historical and aesthetic characteristics and qualities. This month we have selected a PAINTED GLAZED STONEWARE DRAGON AND PHOENIX VASE, CIZHOU MEIPING Jin/Yuan Dynasty (13th century) Height: 10 13/16 inches (27.5 cm.)

Reverse view Click to enlarge

This cizhou meiping has bold dark brown underglazed decoration. The dramatic and fluid brush strokes are a vibrant contrast to the buff stoneware of the vase. A phoenix has been painted on one side, while a dragon is depicted on the other. Both mythological beasts are encased in curvaceously painted lobed parentheses which signal the start of paneled painting on works of art. Three horizontal areas of decoration are separated by a band of two thin lines enclosing a thin band. Incised painted leaves adorn the shoulder, and there is a flattened, overlapping meander band above the foot. The middle and largest area, which occupies the body, contains the depictions of the dragon, phoenix, and clouds. Each mythological beast is encased in curvaceously painted lobed parentheses, separated by an alternating stylized petal design. On this cizhou meiping, the dragon is painted among whirling clouds and with an open mouth, looking as though about to breathe fire. This massive looking dragon coils itself within the parameters of the panel within which it is painted. The phoenix illustration has outstretched wings and, like the dragon, is surrounded by whirling clouds. The depiction of the phoenix is significant because it represents the Empress, while the dragon image on the opposite side symbolizes the Emperor. In Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) Sherman E. Lee writes of how the shapes and decoration of cizhou ware during the Yuan dynasty influenced the development of blue and white porcelain (pages 11, 12). He also discusses how the making of cizhou ware started earlier than blue and white porcelain and continued being made into the following dynasty.    Provenance:      Greek Family Collection, Valos, Greece. A similar phoenix illustration on a bottle vase (tz'u-chou ware), can be found in Sherman E. Lee and Wai-Kam Ho's Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), figure 48. Pieces with the same organized horizontal segments are shown in Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz'u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D. by Yutaka Mino, pages 172 and 173. Illustrated in the same publication, on page 163, is another meiping, though larger and differently shaped, that has the same flattened meander pattern as this cizhou meiping, which is attributed to the Jin dynasty, 13th century. If you would like more information on this piece, please click here.

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View our Object Under Spotlight for September, 2001.

View our Object Under Spotlight for Aug, 2001. Sold

View our Object Under Spotlight for July, 2001. Sold

View our Object Under Spotlight for May, 2001.

View our Object Under Spotlight for March, 2001. Sold

View our Object Under Spotlight for February, 2001. Sold

View our Object Under Spotlight for January, 2001. Sold

View our Object Under Spotlight for December, 2000.

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